Children left with no pain relief at Stafford Hospital

Four out of five children treated at Stafford Hospital's A&E department were left suffering in pain without medicine, a public inquiry has heard.

The Francis Inquiry into the hospital saw evidence yesterday that in 2008 the hospital was not providing pain relief to children for more than an hour in half of cases.

The figures emerged in an audit of the A&E department carried out by the College for Emergency Medicine which showed 80 per cent of children waited over 20 minutes for pain relief.

More than 60 per cent waited over 30 minutes and 50 per cent waited longer than an hour.

This compared to a national average of 58 per cent waiting 20 minutes, 45 per cent waiting 30 minutes and 31 per cent waiting over an hour.

The president of the college Dr John Heyworth told the inquiry: "A patient in pain requires pain relief immediately and the trust should have been doing something to improve its performance."

He admitted the college did not follow up on its audits of any hospital to check action was taken to improve the situation.

He said the college had a staff of just 15 and was not capable of carrying out detailed studies and actions but he said they would expect hospitals to take action.

He admitted the college did not know about the Healthcare Commission investigation into the trust in 2008 until the report was made public in 2009 and denied that it knew about concerns at Stafford Hospital A&E department.

Dr Heyworth also claimed the level of emergency care in A&E departments at hospitals across England was "woefully inadequate" and putting patients at risk, with fewer than half the number of consultants needed.

He said patients were being seen by junior doctors and rarely by specialist consultants which had led to the level of care not being what it should.

"An average department is seeing around 70 to 75,000 patients a year and we need a lot of staff to manage those patients safely," he added.

"We have had a woefully inadequate emergency care workforce and we need to change. It's not provided the levels of care which the college would wish."