Jack Williment-Barr, four, lies on the floor of Leeds General Infirmary (Picture: Yorkshire Evening Post)

A little boy is seen lying on the floor of a hospital on a pile of coats after he was rushed in by ambulance fearing he had pneumonia.

Jack, four, was given an oxygen mask by overstretched staff after being told Leeds General Infirmary had no free beds.

His mum Sarah Williment, 34, covered Jack in coats to keep him warm, as the hospital experienced its busiest week since April 2016.

He was eventually moved to a ward on a trolley where he spent five hours before a bed was found at 3am, Sarah told the Yorkshire Evening Post.


This was more than 13 hours after he had first arrived at A&E, his mum said.



Sarah, a primary school assistant from Leeds, described the situation as a ‘crisis’.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said Leeds hospital had been promised funding as part of the Conservatives’ plan to build 40 hospitals – despite only putting forward for funding for six in the next decade (Picture: PA)

She said hospital staff were ‘all as helpful as they could be’ but ‘there simply aren’t enough beds to cope with the high level of demand’.

Sarah told the paper she would now switch allegiance and vote Labour in Thursday’s election, owing to her concerns about the state of the NHS.

She added: ‘I am frustrated about the system and the lack of beds, which I am presuming is due to a lack of funding to the NHS to deliver the services that are required.’

Jack was eventually diagnosed with flu and tonsillitis and allowed to go home at lunchtime the following day.

Labour’s shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth has called on the prime minister to apologise to the family.

Heath secretary Jonathan Ashworth pictured with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn at Crawley Hospital, described Jack’s treatment as ‘shameful’ (Picture: PA)

He described the picture of Jack as ‘shameful’ and said: ‘Boris Johnson should personally apologise to Jack and his family. A decade of Tory cuts has brought us to this crisis in our NHS.

‘If the Tories win on Thursday, patients including children will suffer five more years of this. We need a Labour government to save our NHS.’

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has thanked ‘tireless’ hospital staff, adding: ‘Leeds has been allocated £600 million of funding as part of our commitment to build 40 new hospitals.’

Despite the election pledge of 40 new hospitals, the Conservatives have been criticised for putting funding forward for just six NHS trusts, each with a major hospital badly in need of rebuilding.

Those six hospitals will be funded over the next five years to go ahead with building plans that were already awaiting approval.

A further 21 trusts will then get £100million seed funding between them for building works on 34 hospitals from 2025 to 2030, the health secretary has said.

Asked about Jack’s treatment on LBC this morning, the prime minister said: ‘This is exactly why we need to move on.

‘We’re putting £34 billion into the NHS now, this is the biggest investment we’ve seen in modern times but we need to drive it forward.’

Mr Johnson said there is ‘so much more that needs to be done’, adding: ‘That is why we just need to unblock the politics of this country and move forward.’



Pressed on what he said to people who wait more than 12 hours in A&E for treatment, the PM said: ‘I want everybody to have the best possible experience in the NHS and I have every sympathy with people who don’t.’

He said he believes the NHS on the whole does a ‘wonderful, wonderful job’, adding: ‘We need to be putting money in now and move forward as a country.’

He added: ‘Of course I sympathise very much and I apologise to everybody who has a bad experience.

‘By and large, I think the NHS do an amazing job and I think that they deserve all praise for the service they provide – but they do need investment and that’s why we’re doing it now.

‘But they need investment from a One Nation government that really cares and understands – that’s us that cares and understands – and you need long-term funding.’

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