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Patients lie on hospital trolleys in rows four wide and five deep across a packed A&E department.

Others line the corridors, squeezed in anywhere doctors can find space.

More than 30 sick and exhausted patients have waited up to 15 hours to be moved to a ward, but the hospital is full – there is nowhere to go.

This is not some Third World country, or a scene from a disaster movie.

These are real pictures from a British hospital that lay bare the true terrifying extent of the winter crisis that has crippled our beloved health service.

(Image: BBC)

The shocking images were captured during a typical night at Nottingham’s Queen’s Medical Centre during the peak of the crisis in January, shown for the first time on last night’s BBC2 documentary Hospital.

Claire Reay, nurse in charge at the A&E, is heard saying: “Where there’s space, there will be a trolley.”

One patient, who could not see ­properly, is clearly disturbed, saying: “It makes me feel anxious that I can’t see what’s around me, but I know I’m in the middle of a big room with lots of people I don’t know. It’s not dignified, people spending their nights next to random strangers when they are poorly.”

It is just a snapshot of the horrifying problems facing the whole country – A&Es bulging at the seams, chronic bed and staff shortages, and high numbers of elderly “bed blockers” due to a lack of funding for social care.

During January the QMC treated fewer than 20% of cancer patients within the 62-day target because there were not enough specialists to cope.

(Image: BBC)

In footage to be screened next week, cancer surgeon David Grant admits: “I know in my own practice sometimes a delay in getting someone in the ­operating theatre could be the difference between life and death.

“It stings when that happens. These are people, they are not numbers, they are not targets. They are your mothers, your wives, and your children. Treat them like it.”

The footage shown last night was filmed just weeks before Dr Matthew Metcalfe, medical director at nearby Northampton General, revealed a man died of a cardiac arrest “entirely due to dangerous overcrowding” in A&E after a nine-hour wait.

Northampton and the QMC were among 24 hospitals that declared a “black alert” for A&E this winter, meaning they were at full capacity.

As a result NHS bosses cancelled all non-urgent surgery for a month to cut the demand for beds. Yet the backlog continued to grow.

(Image: BBC)

Days after the blanket ban on routine ops, the QMC had 57 patients in A&E waiting to be admitted, but – like many hospitals across the UK – found it still had nowhere to put them.

Ruaridh Thow, an advanced clinical ­practitioner in A&E, said: “Ten years ago they used to play cricket in the middle of the department because there were no patients.

“Now you get log-jammed, quite literally. The system is broken and it’s not A&E that can fix it.”

While A&Es were overcrowded, operating theatres stood empty and surgeons struggled to find something useful to do.

The same situation would have been echoed in other hospitals.

Peter James, an ­orthopaedic surgeon at QMC, said on one day he performed just one ­procedure, a simple injection for tendonitis.

He added: “We’ve never had it as bad as this before. Normally we would do five or six hip or knee operations a day in one theatre.”

During winter 2016/17 the shortage of hospital beds grew so bad the Red Cross declared it a “humanitarian crisis”.

(Image: Nottingham Post/BPM Media)

But this winter has been even worse. New figures revealed 440,000 patients have waited longer than the 18-week target for surgery.

The delays are caused by a perfect storm of issues. Hospital admissions are rising as a growing elderly population needs treatment for flu and other winter illnesses.

Meanwhile, Health Education England has warned the NHS needs 42,000 more nurses, midwives, and therapists.

There is also a shortage of doctors – and money. But there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel.

As the Mirror reported yesterday, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt admitted reports the NHS could get an extra £4billion of funding were “premature”.

NHS England figures show there are now 17,000 fewer hospital beds available than under Labour in 2010.

And it is increasingly hard to find care homes for elderly patients unable to look after themselves, tying up beds.

Marc Cole, a nurse on QMC’s dementia ward, said: “A lot of people think the front door is where the problems are with the NHS. But the biggest problem is the back door and trying to get people out is just as difficult.”