THE Royal Surrey County Hospital has recorded the second-longest wait in an accident & emergency department in a survey of hospitals across the country.
The monthly casualty watch survey by the UK's community health councils, which act as NHS watchdogs, revealed one elderly patient waited 36 hours in the Royal Surrey's A&E department before she was found a bed on a ward.
The longest wait was 43 hours at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Greenwich. The survey was carried out at hospitals across the UK, but with the majority of hospitals monitored in London and the South East.
The Guildford hospital has been dogged by long A&E waiting times and attributes the problem to delayed discharges, when medically fit patients cannot be discharged because they have nowhere to go, for example, a care home.
Tereza Shortall, chief officer of the South West Surrey Community Health Council, which carried out the snapshot survey of the Royal Surrey's A&E department last month, said: "It is so distressing. We know how hard the Royal Surrey has worked to improve the situation, and we have supported them in that hard work.
"But people are still waiting on trolleys for a bed on a suitable ward. If it is like this in July, heaven help us in December!"
Ms Shortall recognised the efforts of the Royal Surrey to tackle the problem with a recently-built medical assessment unit and efforts to prevent unnecessary admissions.
She said the hospital has the equivalent of two wards blocked with delayed discharge patients.
"Casualty cannot turn people away, so they simply have to cope as best they can, but it is local people, especially the elderly, who are suffering. Something has to be done to solve this capacity problem."