‘Risk of future deaths’: coroner issues rare warning to health secretary over hospitals crisis

Inquest into case of a 61-year-old Norfolk woman left in an ambulance queue triggers challenge to Steve Barclay

A coroner has urged the health secretary to take action to prevent needless deaths after a woman died of heart failure following a four-hour wait in the back of an ambulance.

Lyn Brind, 61, was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) in King's Lynn, Norfolk, with chest pains and low blood oxygen levels but could not be admitted because the hospital had no space". Instead she remained in a queue of ambulances outside A&E without a timely diagnosis or treatment and where warning signs about her condition were missed.