AIBU to question my husband's treatment in a hospital waiting room?

[SadlyNotATroll]

Posting here for traffic sorry. DH had a routine blood test on Thursday and was sent straight to hospital after some concerning numbers relating to his kidneys I think. He was there all day Thursday having tests and sent home. Was called at 10:30 on Thursday evening saying he had to go back in the next morning. I don’t want to over share his personal details on the internet but he is being treated with IV antibiotics but isn’t actually being told what for. Last night they had no beds and he slept in a chair in the clinic waiting room. I say slept but he didn’t sleep at all. Today he’s still there and being told he will be needing to stay in over the weekend but they have no beds. He has no privacy and is sat upright in a chair.

I get that the NHS is in dire straits, I really do. But how can he be treated in a waiting room chair and be expected to sleep and recover there? Do we have any recourse at all? Please don’t think this is a nurse/NHS bashing thread. The staff have been wonderful and it’s not their fault at all.

As a nurse this is heartbreaking to hear!! You are absolutely right. Could they explore hospital at home with IV antibiotics administered at home or even being discharged with return daily to get them?

Very shit but not surprised at all.

Home to shower? How strange. Doesn't the ward have bathroom facilities?

Sorry I haven't read the full thread but just wanted to say I'm a nurse and I urge you to complain. After he's had treatment and is on the mend you can do it through PALS etc.

We are seeing this constantly now, we hate it and are sadly becoming so used to it that the shock factor has gone. Us staff fill out incident report forms but nothing happens, I ask patients and relatives to formally complain or provide feedback as I think thats the only way management are going to listen. Management rely on us (patients/relatives/staff) to just sound off rather than formally complain so we all have to make a stand.

They usually start treating you as soon as you are referred to hospital- all be it SITTING in A CHAIR. However: there is usually a designated ROOM with BEDS nearby for more urgent cases where Various interventions take place. IF Hes treated all along IN THE CHAIR ,then this is their FIT TO SIT policy AND the only way around it is not be fit enough to sit. I recently made it, quite quickly, to the ROOM with BEDS ; was put on OXYGEN then rushed into discharge. Where next day saw a PRIVATE GP and was thoroughly listened to and treated for PNEUMONIA....please DO NOT SHOOT THIS MESSENGER as I know this is an emotive subject. The NHS is thoroughly screwed.

My 83 year old Mum with dementia and cancer was left with no bed from Thursday tea time till Sunday afternoon in a&e with no bed - she was on intravenous antibiotics and a drip. She was finally found a bed. Discharged her on Tuesday to a chair in the corridor with no family there. By the time we realised what was going on and got there there was already someone else in the bed. It was an ‘unsafe discharge’ as no care package had been put in place. I managed to do it in 48 hours but the stress of that whole episode was beyond belief

this happened May 2026

staff were fantastic and did their best in horrendous circumstances

Absolutely this - you read about cases like this and think they must be the exception rather than the rule but they are sadly not. My dad had a heart attack this week and was in a chair for 36 hours before he got a bed on the cardiac ward. State of the art hospital, been open about 5 years and the whole ward, which is intended for people who have been assessed and deemed sick enough for hospital treatment, is set up with chairs and not beds. I felt so sorry for the people there who were all sick, and the poor staff (doing an amazing job) who were getting a lot of grief from people who couldn’t understand why they were being made to sit in a chair. Absolutely appalling state of affairs for a developed country

In the old days a district nurse would have come to your home and given him iv antibiotics at home. He obviously has a kidney infection which is why they are giving him iv antibiotics but he’s not “ill” ill so isn’t needing to be admitted properly just treated. Just be grateful he can go home after being treated and he can manage to sleep a bit in his chair while other people who are actually properly ill will be lying in corridors being treated as they don’t have any beds available

Yes young and old and its absolutely awful , i was just asking what the person who posted about get rid of the bedblockers who they thought the bedblockers were as I've never heard of anyone wanting to stay in hospital , when they didn't need to

I have spent many many hours in A&E over the last couple of years with heart problems. I have had to "sleep" in upright chairs for 36 hours or more. All around me were sick people whose IV treatments were taking place in their chairs for days on end.
It is miserable. But if there are no beds then at the very least they are getting treatment.

Unfortunately, it is the discharge of the patients the other end that is the issue and why there are no beds. People need to stay planning for their old age properly. Families need to be further with ailing relatives and encourage them to get care arranged in good time. I see so many families who are exhausted by the time their elderly parent is admitted. They are often living in completely unsuitable accommodation. The families have plugged the gaps but cannot any more. Then when the person no longer needs hospital treatment, they sit in a hospital bed for a further month or no, waiting for a few days of free care until they are assessed and told they need to fund their own. Read any thread on MN about elderly parents who are at risk of falls etc and almost everyone will say, just tell them it is unsafe discharge, just say you cannot help, say they need to fund the care etc etc. This is the knock on effect of that. As a society, we cannot have it both ways. Either or NHS is for sick people and we make a plan for the recovered to get home as soon as not needing doctor, or we continue to find all these nights in hospital at £500 a night, whilst no one else can get a bed in A& E, let alone a ward.
Please have a plan. Make a plan with elderly relatives. Downsize when you are fit and able to. Make an advanced directive. Appointment a lasting power of attorney for both finances and health. Have conversations about how they will manage on discharge on day of admission and make a plan. This is the only way we will unplug A&E.

Exactly this.
i help my own Father to stay independent, but if the time comes, he will be able to go into a home.

It's not good enough but as you can see from the responses we keep on expecting, and are very happy with care that would be unacceptable abroad. It's free at source therefore people equate that to It's OK to not sleep in over 24 hours.

There's a fine line between not quite dieing yet so the expectation is you don't burden the nhs.

The more we accept and praise this, the worse it gets. Imagine having no one to advocate for you? This will be of all fates in old age..people would not be happy sleeping in their own chair upright but if it's the nhs and they was sick is fine. Utter bollocks if you ask me.

The nhs is amazing if your actively in a crisis and dieing. The rest, not so much. It's not nurses or Dr's fault but it's someone's fault. Typically us British don't want to pay to change it.

I believe you.

I was recently in A&E and there was an older lady who had already been there overnight. The doctor said she needed a bed but there wasn’t going to be any for at least 3 days as there was a waiting list of 30 people for beds and they just didn’t have any. They said she would have to wait in A&E all that time. She was elderly and needed carers at home really.

What shocked me was that they didn’t have any side rooms to assess anyone/give out personal information, so we all heard it in A&E. Which I think is ridiculous.

These experiences are shocking. IMO we simply cannot go on like this and I’m getting thoroughly sick of the “protect the NHS at all costs” brigade. As far as I’m concerned they are contributing towards excess death.

The system needs urgent reform so it can provide suitable healthcare to all.

Have they still not told him what is wrong though? 😕

I don't think I'd dare leave. That happened with my child a few years back when little (needed to go home to treat for nits would you believe!?) and when we went back and they'd given the bed to someone else! We ended up in a chair in the Day room all night after they reconnected the drip 😞

Edited for typo.

We have a friend who has had multiple admissions this year as awaiting a transplant and health deteriorating. It's always like this, can be 48 hours waiting for a bed, treatment in interview rooms and all sorts, missing rounds, meals and treatment due to the wards being full and it's the same over and over. The NHS is barely functioning now, we are in absolute crisis and until the UK stops it's fixation with migrants which are not the problem and starts crying out about inefficient governments, rich and corporations paying too little taxes and voting in governments that do fuck all about it while vilifying figures that speak truth and tell us what need to be actually done, we are cooked

What shocked me was that they didn’t have any side rooms to assess anyone/give out personal information, so we all heard it in A&E. Which I think is ridiculous.

IME in A&E staff do try to provide some privacy, but there is no space for this and in reality we all know what everyone one around us is suffering from.

I admire you, OP, you're very level headed.

In your shoes I would be mad at the NHS. I get that worshipping the NHS is a religion in this country but it just is not fit for purpose.

I wish your DH a speedy recovery.

The NHS is broken, it's so sad.

I came back from holiday with covid. I'm clinically vulnerable and had avoided it up until then. Rang 111 and they said I had to go in, I felt SO ill and had breathing problems. DH drove me in.
Saw triage and they said they didnt want me in a waiting room where people could catch it, so I was to wait in the car. Waiting an hour, I was freezing cold and felt awful. I went back in, they'd forgotten to call me. Had a covid test and was sent back out to the car to wait. Called in for bloods. They were taken, and I was told to go back out and wait in my car. I said NO. I feel terribly ill and I have been here 6 hours. My husband had to drive home as he had the family to look after. He'd been sat in the car all that time with me.
I was given a bed in the ER. No pillow, blanket, no water, no treatment. My son drove in and brought me a blanket and nightclothes and a huge flask of squash.
Four days then of - should they give me the 'protocol' for my condition. Oh no, its too late for that now. Should I have steroids - oh they have to check with my consultant when he is back in the next day. He said no, too risky for me. So I was given antibiotics. I was moved to another unit. I was in 5 days and saw a doctor once.
I didn't complain. There's no point. They are already stretched and my complaining would have made no difference.

I hope your DH is okay.

In my experience it's a lack of communication. I was in hospital recently. I saw the consultant at 9:00 who said I was ok to go home after I'd had an iron infusion, so after lunch.

I rang my adult child to arrange for them to pick me up. We decided that 2:30 was sufficiently "after lunch" for them to rearrange that days meetings to accommodate my pick up.

at 11:30 I asked when the iron infusion would take place. I got no answer. At 2:00, well after lunch, I was asked what I wanted that evening for dinner. I said I wouldn't be there for dinner.

I was overheard by the ward sister who said I wouldn't be going anywhere until she said so.

I explained what I had been told five hours earlier. The sister said she knew nothing about that. I'll admit I had a little more of an edge to my voice when I pointed out to her that their lack of communication was not my issue, and I would be leaving when I chose, not when she granted permission.

it was all so silly. I could have had the infusion ( it took less than half an hour) and been out of their by late morning. Instead it took until 4:00 and even then my adult child has to return the next day to pick up my discharge papers.

so I was a bed blocker, for a couple of hours.

I guess that's not the kind you mean. I guess you mean those who no longer need nursing care but cannot safely be sent home until social care can be sorted out.

and these are the people you think should be sat in chairs? People who may not be able to use the lavatory without help, people who have broken hips that now just need rest so their bones can mend?

some people seem sometimes to be lacking in the milk of human kindness department.

This is awful. He is lucky at least in that he has you looking out for him-how many people who have no one are literally dying?

It’s unacceptable but I’ve seen it many times as a doctor (and a patient) in multiple cities across the UK over the last ten years.

At the top of my head I can recall an elderly patient with a TIA in a chair in A&e for over 24 hours (Northern Ireland), a young person on IV treatment following a paracetamol overdose sat in a chair in a&e over 24 hours ( English countryside hospital) , and when I was admitted to Birmingham women’s hospital with high blood pressure at 39 weeks pregnant there were no beds so I was put in a disused ultrasound room - on a sofa (!!!!)

It is completely unacceptable, yes. But I’m not surprised by your husband’s account unfortunately.

My 75 year old grandmother had a heart attack, they kept her in a plastic!!! Chair for 3 days before she was given a bed. It didn’t recline or anything

This is called “fit to sit” and takes up less space than beds. It is disgusting we have this in UK!