Broken neck woman waits three days for bed

A mother who broke her neck in a car accident was forced to wait for three days and then was transferred 100 miles from her home because of a shortage of specialist beds, it emerged today.

Jackie Teigh, 30, also broke her legs, a hip and some ribs and punctured a lung in the crash. She was taken to West Herts Hospital, in her home town of Hemel Hempstead.

Doctors decided she needed to be treated in a specialist trauma unit and began a search for a place in nearby hospitals on 27 October.

Units at the Royal Free Hospital, in Hampstead, Stanmore Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Stoke Mandeville, and John Radcliffe in Oxford were all full. After three days, a bed was found in Nottingham.

Ms Teigh's mother, Anne Teigh, said today: "I've no complaint against the hospital, it is with the NHS system. It's totally unbelievable."

A hospital spokesman said: "There is a shortage nationally of specialist beds."