Nurses who exposed an acute shortage of staff and beds at Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital will not face disciplinary action, it was confirmed today.

Five members of the accident and emergency team at the hospital told an inquest on 80-year-old widow Kathleen Mobbs, that they were struggling to cope on an almost daily basis with the sheer number of emergency patients.

Both Michael Gwynne, Telford & Wrekin coroner, and Mrs Mobbs’ son-in-law, Chris Ward, commended the women for highlighting the crisis after Mrs Mobbs was left waiting seven hours to see a doctor – and Mr Ward said he hoped there were “no reprisals”.

Today hospital boss Tom Taylor gave an assurance that no action would be taken against the nurses, though he would have preferred their concerns to have been resolved through discussions with managers.

“Nobody will face disciplinary action. Absolutely not,” he said.

Mr Taylor, chief executive of the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Hospital Trust, said moves were under way to improve the situation at the Princess Royal.

Agency work would be cut and additional full-time nurses provided in A&E. The trust will also be recruiting additional acute physicians.

“All this will mean additional cost to the trust but which we think is necessary to provide the right quality of care to patients,” said Mr Taylor.

The trust will also be working with the rest of the county’s health service to try to discover what is driving the big rise in demand at the Princess Royal and how this can be managed.

Over the past two years there has been a 30 per increase in patients brought by ambulance to the Princess Royal but only a four per cent rise at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

The average weekly number of people attending A&E at Telford is 970 and 700 at Shrewsbury but the actual number of patients who have to be admitted is lower at the Princess Royal than the Royal Shrewsbury.

Mrs Mobbs, of Dawley, a retired civil servant, died on November 14 last year from advanced and undiagnosed cancer affecting her lungs and other organs. The inquest was told the delay did not cause her death.

By Health Correspondent Dave Morris