A MUM and her poorly baby were forced to queue outside Southend A&E for more than an hour - despite her seven-month old child being deemed high risk due to a previous cardiac arrest.

The woman, from Rayleigh, was originally told that an ambulance was unavailable due to high demand and decided to rush her daughter to hospital herself.

The youngster was suffering a high temperature, struggling to stay awake and wouldn’t eat.

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When they arrived at the hospital, they were met with a huge queue of people waiting outside A&E and were forced to wait for an hour before even entering the hospital.

The mum then waited five hours before her daughter was seen by a doctor, leaving her furious after she was previously told her daughter would be deemed “high-risk” if she needed hospital treatment.

The mum, who has asked not to be named, said: “I am pretty angry to be honest because I couldn’t understand how we are high priority for an ambulance, yet not being able to get one, and then further so, being made to wait for more than an hour out in the cold at A&E.

“We weren’t the only ones in the queue with poorly children too, the last thing you want to be doing with an ill child is standing out in the cold.

“The by the time we got to the hospital to the time when were then seen was another four hours, I have never seen it so busy.

“There was no space in the hospital, there were ambulances queued up parked outside with people in, this shouldn’t be happening.

“However, I do have sympathy for the staff because to me it wasn’t them, they are clearly overstretched and not enough is being done to solve that problem.”

It is believed that patients being asked to queue outside A&E is part of hospital Covid measures, combined with a high demand in recent weeks.

A spokesperson for Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We saw a high demand in our A&E department on Monday, March 21, with many arriving by ambulance.

“Members of the public can help by calling NHS 111 before coming to A&E, other than where there is an urgent life threatening situation.

“This reduces the number of visitors to our emergency department and will enable our staff to care for members of the public who do need the specialist skills and urgent care that we provide.”

An East of England Ambulance Service spokesperson added: “We are very sorry for the delay in our response we were able to provide on this occasion.  

“At the time of the call our services were very busy and the call was reviewed by our emergency clinical advice and triage team which is run by senior clinicians including doctors.  

“As the family lived relatively close to an emergency department their advice was that it was in the best interests of the child if they made their own way to hospital, as they were able to do so, rather than wait longer for an ambulance to arrive. 

“Our patient experience team would like to discuss the case in more detail with the family and apologise directly for any distress caused.”