A  99-year-old widow was sent home from the Princess Royal Hospital at 1am with a cut head and two broken ribs – because she would otherwise have spent the night on a trolley, a Telford inquest heard today.

Senior doctor Robert Turnbull agreed with Mr Michael Gwynne, Telford & Wrekin coroner, that he would not have wanted his own grandmother treated that way.

Mr Turnbull, an associate specialist at the hospital’s accident and emergency department, said hospitals all over the country were struggling – partly due to the closure of cottage hospitals.

“The sad part for us is we are operating with limited resources and beds,” he said. “Patients sometimes wait up to 10 hours on trolleys.”

Ideally, he said, the A&E department should have an observation ward where patients like Florence Walker could stay.

But the alternative to her going home would have been to stay on a trolley for the rest of the night, complaining she was uncomfortable, he said.

Recording a verdict of accidental death, Mr Gwynne called for the hospital to review its policy for discharging elderly patients.

Mrs Walker, of Bennett House Care Home, Park Lane, Woodside, Telford, died at the hospital on March 22, from bronchial pneumonia due to two fractured ribs and a cut head with a secondary cause of heart disease.

She was first admitted to the hospital on March 18 after falling at the home.

Mr Turnbull treated her wound and diagnosed her broken ribs with an X-ray.

He told staff when his shift finished at 10pm she could be discharged if blood tests proved satisfactory.

But the department was very busy that night, with 10 patients waiting on trolleys and the doctor on duty did not discharge her until 1am.

Mrs Walker went back to the hospital on March 20 for a CT scan, which revealed no problems, but went back two days later and suffered cardiac arrest.

Dr Kenneth Scott, consultant pathologist, said Mrs Walker’s treatment had been appropriate.

By Peter Johnson