The Worcestershire Royal Hospital’s A&E department was under so much pressure West Midlands Ambulance Service had to send in its medical incident officer to help beleaguered staff after months of problems.
Unions said it was “totally unacceptable”, adding that its members were “furious”.
The Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, apologised but said the circumstances were “less than ideal”.
Pressure on beds had been “a constant issue” for more than a year. It simply could not discharge patients quickly enough, resulting in a backlog.
We took a decision to offload patients into A&E
The trust said the issues were “a national problem, not just a local one”.
A spokesman added: “Other hospitals don’t let patients out of the ambulances and you have queues of ambulances building up outside.
“We don’t do that. We took a decision to offload patients into A&E.”
The trust said no patients had come to any harm.
The crisis came as national figures from NHS England showed it has missed the four-hour waiting time target for the 28th week in a row.
The proportion of patients seen within the Government maximum of four hours at A&E departments fell below the target of 95 per cent.