Shocking photographs show patients ‘forced to lie on the FLOOR with people stepping over them’ at a busy Yorkshire hospital amid winter NHS chaos

This heartbreaking image of patients lying on a hospital floor have emerged as the NHS crisis deepens.

A woman snapped the photos because she was so "absolutely shocked" at the situation in Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

Hospital bosses have insisted there were chairs for the patients to sit on but the woman, who asked not to be named claims this was not the case.

The 57-year-old said: “You can understand people being tired and lying on the floor but it was not really like that,” she explained.

“People are waiting hours and hours and hours and have to sit on hard metal chairs.

“After you have spent so many hours sitting in a chair when you are poorly you will get into any position you can to be comfortable.”

The pictures were taken in the early hours of January 2 in the cubicle area of Pinderfields’ Accident and Emergency department. One shows a man, attached to a drip, bedded down with his head resting on his rolled-up coat.

The other features a man in a hospital gown lying in a corridor. A wheeled chair is beside him.

The woman, who has asked not to be named, told the Huddersfield Examiner : “This state of affairs at Pinderfields is not just in A&E and not just at Christmas. It’s happening on a regular basis.

“People were sitting around in chairs, shivering. In 2018 people should not be having to sleep on the floor without either a pillow or a blanket. If you were in prison you would be offered a pillow and a blanket – and a bed.

“I have nothing but admiration for the doctors and nurses. They were working tirelessly but there were not enough of them. They are run ragged. It was more about the conditions that people are having to endure.

“The man who was lying on the floor at the bottom of my husband’s bed was being sick. He was asking for a trolley to lie on but there wasn’t one to give him.

"He was there for a few hours. People were stepping over him. I never expected to see that.”

She and her husband had travelled by ambulance 20 miles from their home to Pinderfields at one o’clock in the morning.

“What I saw the other night is the result of downgrading Dewsbury Hospital, and staff just can’t cope. They’re wanting to close Huddersfield Royal Infirmary as well. It’s absolute madness.”

David Melia, Director of Nursing and Quality at the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Pinderfields, said the Trust had received no complaints regarding the care of the two patients identified in the photographs, “who may have chosen to lie down as seats were provided.”

Theresa May has apologised for delays to NHS operations, saying she knows it's "difficult", "frustrating" and "disappointing".

The Prime Minister had previously denied the NHS was in crisis saying it was “better prepared for this winter than ever before”.

The NHS was forced to enact emergency measures after hospitals failed to keep up with the high demand.

This included cancelling an estimated 55,000 operations such as hip replacements were axed until February.

Jeremy Corbyn said it was not 'good enough' when the 'Tory Government has caused this crisis'.

He tweeted: "Nurses, doctors and patients are pleading with her to properly fund our health service, but she is ignoring them."

An emergency panel announced the updated order on Tuesday, which also gave permission to defer follow-ups and use mixed wards.