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Stricken NHS patients were left waiting for up to SEVEN HOURS on hospital trolleys leaving medics with no option but to say: “Go home if you’re not dying.”

In a disturbing new low for our over-stretched health service, the Sunday People can reveal a hospital put a message over a Tannoy advising people to go home.

Patients were told: “We would ask anyone who doesn’t have a life-threatening illness to go home and come back in the morning.”

The extraordinary situation unfolded at the North Middlesex Hospital in Edmonton, north London on Friday night.

Tonight a spokesman for the hospital confirmed they had to issue the mayday alert because 450 casualties arrived during one shift.

One eyewitness who saw the chaos unfold said he witnessed more than 100 people in the waiting room.

He said at one point there were a dozen patients on trolleys lining the wall along the department because all cubicles full.

Many had been waiting on trolleys for several hours.

At 11pm a message went on the tannoy saying that the wait to see a doctor was eight hours for adults and six hours in children’s A&E, leading to disbelief among those there.

Several people then left the hospital.

(Image: Alamy Stock Photo)

Tonight politicians and health unions hit out at the situation saying it was indicative of widespread problems in the NHS .

Labour’s Andrew Gwynne said the NHS was at the point of it’s worst crisis.

Unison general secretary Dave Prentis said the situation was unlikely to improve unless the Government ended the dispute with junior doctors over a new contract and focus on mending the crisis-hit NHS.

Read more:NHS facing "worst cash crisis in its history" as deficit soars past £2.2 billion

He said: “The Government has put the NHS under huge strain so overworked staff are struggling to cope and patients are being let down.

“Rather than look for continued conflict with dedicated NHS workers, ministers should be working with them and giving the NHS the cash it needs.”

A spokesman for the British Medical Association added: “It’s very clear that the NHS is under enormous pressure and it doesn’t have the resources or staff to meet these pressures.

“The Government needs to take serious the challenges that are facing the NHS and come up with a proper plan that gives doctors and nurses the ability to meet the needs of their patients.”

Yesterday a spokesman for the hospital confirmed they had been forced to advise those not critically ill they would face huge delays.

He said: “We can confirm it was it was exceptionally busy on Friday at North Middlesex Hospital with 450 cases coming through the door.

“That included a number of major cases of resuscitation and blue-light ambulance cases.

“We were under pressure and we were seeing waits of up to seven hours. We did inform people to come back the next day if their cases weren’t urgent because we were under such pressure.”

Last week the Sunday People revealed paramedics at North Middlesex were being forced to wait for hours in A&E with patients because of a shortage of trolleys.

In a separate scandal so many ambulances were queuing at nearby Barnet Hospital that they had to park on a roundabout on the hospital grounds.

Read more:NHS reforms by Tories have been deeply flawed says top lawyer Michael Mansfield

The North Middlesex Hospital, in Edmonton, north London, has faced difficulties ever since the closure of Chase Farm Hospital.

The unit in North Enfield closed in December 2013 despite appeals to the Government for a reprieve.

At the 2010 General Election, David Cameron visited the hospital with then shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley and promised the hospital would stay open under the Tories.

In June 2014 – just days before a visit by the Care Quality Commission – local MP David Burrowes nearly died in the department after being left on a trolley for 13 hours with acute appendicitis.

A subsequent Care Quality Commission report failed the A&E department, saying the unit has an “over-reliance from the people living in the local community”.

Last week it was revealed that the hospital was short of trolleys. Six paramedic crews were trapped with their ambulance trolleys unable to leave the department because they couldn’t move patients of them.

Last year a toddler and an adult – whose widow has been awarded compensation – died due to blunders in the A&E department.

In December a man died in the A&E department due to alleged neglect. His death is being investigated by the coroner and an independent serious incident investigation is under way by an external expert.

Last week NHS England held a crisis summit with local GPs and the hospital to try and turn the situation round.

Campaigners who fought the closure of Chase Farm A&E say North Middlesex was never equipped to cope with the extra patients caused by the loss.

A spokesperson for NHS England said: “We initiated a review in response to concerns raised about North Middlesex Hospital and have asked the trust and its partner organisations to produce a robust action plan to immediately begin to address the issues raised.

“We will continue to work with all partners across the NHS to monitor its implementation and ensure improvements are made.”

'This is the human cost of disastrous Tory NHS policies'

Andrew Gwynne Labour’s Shadow Public Health Minister

Six years of David Cameron ’s government has left the NHS on the brink of the biggest crisis it has ever faced.

Hospitals are on course to end the year nearly £3 billion in the red, cuts to nurse training places have left hospital dangerously understaffed, and the collapse of social care has led to hundreds of thousands of older people without the care and support they need to live at home independently.

David Cameron should be trying to repair the damage he has done to our NHS. Instead, he has wasted the past nine months picking fights with junior doctors and demanding hospitals makes £22billion of ‘efficiency savings’.

The sad truth is that the people who suffer the most from this government’s disastrous policies are patients – the father made to wait hours in an overcrowded A&E department with his sick child; the 90 year-old grandmother stuck on a hospital trolley because there aren’t enough beds; or the student who isn’t able to get an appointment with their GP.

This is the human cost of the Tories failed NHS policies.

These are the people this Government is letting down.

David Cameron needs to stop burying his head in the sand and start taking some responsibility for the nation’s health.

The National Health Service is there for us in our time of need. It’s about time Ministers returned the favour.