A distressed dad says hospital bosses should be “ashamed” after his sick son was left waiting on a hard chair in A&E for 18 hours.

Tim Hebditch has hit out at the East Kent Hospitals Trust following the experience of 19-year-old Daniel at the William Harvey in Ashford.

The University of Kent student had been referred to Kent and Canterbury Hospital at 6pm last Wednesday after calling 111 complaining of acute stomach pain, digestive issues and a fever.

After being seen by a doctor, he was then sent by taxi to the William Harvey, arriving shortly before midnight.

Further tests confirmed he needed to be admitted, but he would spend the next 18 hours in an A&E waiting room before eventually being moved to a cubicle.

It was then a further day before a bed was found for him on a ward.

Tim, who travelled with his wife from Portsmouth to be with Daniel, says the ordeal left his son exhausted and in a great deal of discomfort.

“I've worked in healthcare for 30 years and I've never seen anything like it,” said the 49-year-old.

“We would have been happy to even have a bed in a corridor for him, but there wasn't one for the 18 hours he was in the A&E waiting room.

“He was on a hard chair the entire time. I tried to get him to lie down by using a rucksack and jumper on my lap as a pillow. The only other option would have been the floor.”

Tim says it was 6pm on Thursday when a bed was found in a cubicle, by which time his son had been awake for 34 hours.

“His exhaustion levels were through the roof,” added the concerned father, who is operations director for an urgent care provider in south London.

Tim says he was concerned Daniel, who was later found to have an inflamed bowel and a serious infection, was feverish and showing signs of sepsis, as he had a temperature of more than 40C and a pulse above 130bpm.

But he claims he was only seen by a doctor after he continually challenged staff about how long it had been since he had last been checked over.

“By 9am Friday, it had been 26 hours since Daniel was seen by a doctor, so I had to insist a doctor was called,” he said.

“I know things are complicated, but the point is my son was unsafe and his vital signs were getting worse and no doctor was looking at him for a prolonged period.

“If a patient in those circumstances, who is very unwell, didn't have somebody to advocate for them, they could have had to wait even longer than Daniel and face grave risks.”

At 6pm on Friday Daniel was eventually found a place on a ward - 48 hours after he had first arrived at hospital in Canterbury.

He remained at the William Harvey yesterday, where he was still awaiting a definitive diagnosis from gastrointestinal specialists.

“Now he is on a ward, the standard of nursing is better, but the experience at the front of the hospital and the emergency pathway getting this far has been disastrous,” Tim said.

“It took far longer than it should have and could have been catastrophic.

“I work in urgent care. If my services performed like this I would be ashamed, and I hope the chief executive of East Kent is ashamed.”

The latest statistics show Daniel's experience is sadly all too common, with 2,006 patients in Kent left waiting 12 hours for a bed last month - 1,111 of them in the east of the county.

But there are signs of improvement, as this total for Kent is 405 fewer than in January.

However, for context, in the same month three years ago there were just 13 so-called “corridor waits” of 12 hours or more, and in May of the same year none.

Clare Nightingale, from Folkestone, is another patient who has shone a light on the situation at the William Harvey and the pressures faced by overworked staff.

The 60-year-old was admitted last month after suffering a heart attack, and even witnessed a nurse being hit by a distressed patient with dementia during her stay.

“The endlessly enduring staff were constantly run off their feet,” she said.

“In the corridors, some trollies were two abreast with mainly very elderly, frail occupants. These patients had no privacy, many had no blankets, most using bed pans in the corridor; a lot had dementia and were distressed and calling out.

“The medical treatment and all staff were incredible and obviously working under overwhelmingly stressful conditions and yet they remained externally calm, happy, caring and professional.

“I thank all the NHS staff who are so overworked, stressed, abused, underpaid and under-resourced who plough on relentlessly regardless of the probable personal impact on their own wellbeing and health.”

East Kent Hospitals has since apologised for the wait endured by Daniel.

Sarah Hayes, chief nursing and midwifery officer, said: “I am very sorry that Mr Hebditch had to wait longer than we would like to be admitted to a ward.

“Our hospitals remain very busy, with more than 5,800 people attending the emergency department at the William Harvey Hospital last month, many of whom needed to be admitted.

“We also have people on the wards who need longer to recover to be well enough to go home, and others who are waiting for care packages and other arrangements to be finalised before it is safe for them to be discharged.

“Unfortunately this means there can be a long wait for people in our emergency departments, but our dedicated staff work incredibly hard to provide the best possible care and regularly review patients who are waiting.

“To help support our teams in caring for our sickest patients, local communities can help us by only using our emergency departments when it is an emergency, and to contact NHS 111 online to find alternative services if they have less urgent concerns.”

The East Kent trust is made up of three hospitals - Kent and Canterbury, the William Harvey and the QEQM in Margate.

In a bid to improve services, a three-year, multi-million-pound expansion of emergency departments across the trust finished earlier this month.

There are now two new resuscitation bays at the QEQM, which were the last areas to be finished as part of the £30 million project.

They take the number of such bays in the new, expanded department to seven – each with sliding doors to improve privacy and dignity and to reduce the risk of infections spreading.

At the William Harvey there is a large new ambulance entrance, nine resuscitation bays, dedicated areas for patients with mental health needs and 12 rapid assessment and treatment bays.