"Animals treated better": Patient made to sleep on hospital floor

A patient suffering a mental health crisis was made to sleep overnight on the floor of an NHS hospital because it had no spare beds, The Independent has learned.

On Sunday, Mr Ben Ashcroft was given a mattress on the floor at Barnsley Hospital where he had been admitted after waiting for 36 hours at a different mental health hospital.

He described the situation as being “treated like a prisoner”, adding: “An animal is treated better than this. I’m poorly and you think this acceptable to put me in room like this. This all I have in room. Rather be in prison.”

Mr Ashcroft was detained, earlier in the week, under the Mental Health Act at Calderdale Royal Hospital, in West Yorkshire.

But this hospital had no beds available and transferred him to another site in Barnsley where he was taken to a room with just a mattress.

In a statement to The Independent, the trust said demand for beds over the weekend was “exceptionally high” adding “with this level of demand we took short-term measures to ensure all our service users were kept safe”.

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Source: 15 November 2021