A woman who photographed patients lying on a hospital’s floors did so because she was “absolutely shocked” at the scene before her.

The 57-year-old passed on the shocking images of Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield to Batley and Spen MP Tracy Brabin.

And the woman, from Heckmondwike , has rejected a health chief’s explanation that chairs were available for the people concerned.

“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.

Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield (credit to PA)

“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 & 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, added: “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.

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“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.”