Family 'Horrified' After 72-Year-Old Spends Four Days in Chair at Altnagelvin Emergency Department
The family of Mike Kelly, a 72-year-old man who spent four consecutive days sitting in a chair in the hallway of Altnagelvin Hospital's emergency department in Derry after being admitted with a foot infection and angina, have described their experience as "horrifying" and called for urgent action to address a waiting times crisis that has left Northern Ireland with the worst emergency care performance in the United Kingdom — with only 32.5 per cent of patients seen within the four-hour target.
Background
Altnagelvin Area Hospital in Derry is the main acute hospital for the Western Health and Social Care Trust, serving a population of approximately 300,000 people across Derry, Strabane, and the wider north-west of Northern Ireland. The hospital's emergency department is one of the busiest in Northern Ireland, and its performance against the four-hour waiting time target has been among the worst in the region for several years.
Northern Ireland's health waiting list crisis is the most severe in the United Kingdom. More than 542,000 patients are currently waiting for a first consultant-led outpatient appointment, with the average wait exceeding one year. The emergency department crisis is a related but distinct problem: it is driven primarily by the inability to discharge patients from hospital wards — because there are insufficient community care packages, nursing home places, and supported living arrangements to allow medically fit patients to leave hospital — which means that new admissions cannot move out of the emergency department and into a ward bed.
The Royal College of Emergency Medicine has estimated that 1,032 excess deaths in Northern Ireland in the previous year could be attributed to long admission waits in emergency departments — a figure that places the waiting times crisis in the category of a public health emergency rather than a management challenge.
Key Developments
Mike Kelly was admitted to Altnagelvin's emergency department on 6 September 2026 with a foot infection and angina. His family say that he spent the next four days sitting in a chair in the department's hallway, unable to sleep properly, in significant pain, and without access to the level of nursing care that his condition required. The Western Health and Social Care Trust has issued an apology for his experience, acknowledging that it fell "far short of the standard of care that our patients deserve."
New data published by the Department of Health for the period ending June 2026 reveals the scale of the crisis. Only 32.5 per cent of Type 1 emergency department attendances — the most serious category — were seen within the four-hour target, against a standard of 95 per cent. Approximately 11,605 patients — 16.7 per cent of all attendances — waited more than 12 hours in emergency departments during the quarter. Altnagelvin recorded the longest median time from arrival to admission in Northern Ireland, at 19 hours and 28 minutes.
Health Minister Robbie Butler acknowledged that waiting times were "far too long" but said there was "no quick fix." He pointed to the ongoing Stormont budget deadlock as a significant constraint on the Executive's ability to invest in the capital projects — including the redevelopment of the Altnagelvin emergency department — that would help to address the crisis.
Why It Matters
The Kelly family's experience is not an isolated incident — it is a symptom of a systemic failure that affects thousands of patients across Northern Ireland every year. The four-day wait in a chair is an extreme example, but the underlying dynamics that produced it — insufficient ward capacity, inadequate community care provision, and a budget that cannot meet the health service's needs — affect every patient who presents at a Northern Ireland emergency department.
The political context is crucial. The Stormont budget deadlock has prevented the capital investment needed to address the physical capacity constraints in Northern Ireland's hospitals. The Western Trust's plan to redevelop the Altnagelvin emergency department — which would significantly increase its capacity and improve patient flow — has been delayed by the absence of a confirmed capital budget. Until that investment is made, the department will continue to operate in conditions that are inadequate for the volume of patients it is expected to serve.
The comparison with the rest of the United Kingdom is stark. England's emergency department performance is poor by historical standards, but it is significantly better than Northern Ireland's. Scotland and Wales, which face similar pressures, have both invested more heavily in community care infrastructure to reduce the number of patients who are medically fit to leave hospital but cannot be discharged. Northern Ireland has lagged behind in this investment, and the consequences are visible in the waiting times data.
Local Impact
For the communities served by Altnagelvin — including Derry city, the Waterside, Strabane, and the rural areas of County Tyrone and County Donegal that cross the border for care — the emergency department crisis is a daily reality. Community organisations in the area have reported increased demand for their services as people who cannot access timely hospital care turn to voluntary and community sector providers for support. The Derry and Strabane District Council has called on the Health Minister to prioritise the Altnagelvin redevelopment in any budget settlement with Westminster.
What's Next
The Western Health and Social Care Trust has committed to a review of the circumstances of Mike Kelly's case and to implementing any lessons identified. The Health Minister is expected to appear before the Stormont Health Committee later this month to address the emergency department performance data. The Altnagelvin emergency department redevelopment remains on the capital programme but is dependent on a budget settlement with Westminster that has not yet been reached.
