PATIENT suffering in struggling A&E departments is “tantamount to torture,” the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) warned today.

The union was responding to a Channel 4 Dispatches undercover investigation which exposed the crisis in emergency care after 14 years of Tory underfunding and neglect of the NHS.

An undercover reporter spent two months working as a trainee healthcare assistant and secretly filming in the emergency department of the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

The revelations included a patient left sitting on a chair in A&E for 30 hours and an elderly man on a trolley forced to urinate in the corridor in full view of staff.

The investigation revealed that almost 19,000 NHS patients were left waiting in A&E for three days over a 12-month period.

RCN acting general secretary and chief executive Professor Nicola Ranger said: “The footage in Dispatches should shock us all, but sadly it has become commonplace across NHS hospitals.

“Patients can wait for days in corridors and chairs — this is tantamount to torture and a national emergency for patient safety. 

“Nursing staff have been left with an impossible job and feel demoralised.”

She said that lack of capacity in community healthcare services “pushes patients to the doors of emergency departments.”

“When they get there, hospitals are jam-packed, and chronic staff shortages mean patients don’t get the care they deserve. It is unsafe, undignified and unacceptable,” she said.

Prof Ranger said that leaving a patient sitting in a chair for more than 24 hours should be seen in the same way as a patient having the wrong limb treated — a “never event.” 

She called on the next government to make “serious and significant investment across health and care needs” an urgent priority.

A spokesperson for the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital Trust said: “As with other hospitals, our trust is facing significant challenges with urgent and emergency care.

“We are very sorry that our patients have experienced anything less than the quality care we strive for and we are determined, working with partners, to improve the care and experience for everyone.”