“This is disrespectful”

“I'm out of oxygen,” cried Lisa Blackwell, an emergency department nurse.

As three ambulances were about to arrive at Chesterfield Hospital in Derbyshire, she appealed for more supplies.

The new state-of-the-art A&E department opened less than two years ago but is already struggling to keep up with demand.

Over the course of several days of filming, BBC News saw 22 cubicles in the main bay packed with people and beds filling the corridors.

“It's undignified,” said senior nurse manager Stacie Russon.

An old woman fell on the slippery ice outside and received a large gash on her forehead. Blood streamed down her cheeks. When the nurse came over with the blood pressure monitor, her son tried to gently wipe it off with a tissue.

Her trolleys were lined up in five rows outside the cubicle, while patients in the beds in front vomited into a hospital basin.

Across the country, flu numbers are finally declining. It was hoped that the number of patients would also drop, but the cold snap created problems.

“Cold and ice are not a good combination for older adults,” said Dr. Dan Crook, clinical co-director of the emergency department.

A woman, Ann, had her leg crushed when her car slid on ice, trapping her against her garage door.

“Some local schoolchildren heard my screams and eventually enough people gathered to push my car over and save me. They were amazing,” said Ann.

The patient also developed symptoms of hypothermia.

Michael Alton, 83, in the resuscitation room. When he arrived, his temperature had dropped to 30.6 degrees Celsius (87 degrees Fahrenheit).

His neighbor spotted him and decided it would take too long to wait for an ambulance, so he drove him inside.

While the blood was being drawn, the heating blanket worked quickly to try to return his body temperature to a normal range of around 37 degrees Celsius (99 degrees Fahrenheit). He was confused and weak.

Dan Crook's emergency pager beeped, signaling another call to duty, and he rushed to the ambulance arrival station.

James Oakes was old, hypothermic and delirious. Nursing staff were concerned about sepsis.

“He was a farmer,” Dan said. “He's been holding on for a while, but now he's critically ill. We need to get his temperature and oxygen levels up quickly.”

Patients like James are also supposed to be visited in the recovery room, but it's full.

Instead, he was evaluated and stabilized in the ambulance area. Only when he was finally moved into the cubicle did the nurse have time to take off his muddy Wellington boots.

“How long do I have to stay here?” he asked. His animals need to be fed. “I've never been to a hospital before and I don't want to be here too long.”

Managing hospital flow—that is, by freeing up beds for those preparing to leave—is a critical and challenging task.

Dr Hal Spencer, medical consultant and chief executive of Chesterfield Royal Infirmary, said up to 80 of the 540 beds were occupied by patients who were fit to leave but unable to due to family or social care issues .

Some of these patients were admitted even though there was no underlying problem – they just had no other safe place to return.

“It makes it very difficult because it means we don't have the capacity to care for the people who need care the most, but when 02:00 a.m. comes around, we will end up caring for those people – and it's the right thing to do,” Dr Spencer said .

The message from staff at Chesterfield is that they are responding fairly and are providing safe care.

But it was clear to them that this was nowhere near what it should be and that, through no fault of their own, the standards were not up to the standards they had been trained for.