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Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\nA hospital boss has apologised after a Kent emergency department resorted to using its cafe as a makeshift ward.<\/p>\n A&E staff at William Harvey Hospital in Ashford decided to screen off the building’s cafe on Tuesday to create space for treating patients.<\/p>\n East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust said the move was due to “significant demand”.<\/p>\n Trust chief executive Tracey Fletcher said: “We know this is unacceptable and we are very sorry to patients who have been cared for in this way.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A “small number” of patients were looked after in the cafe until emergency patients could be diverted to other hospitals in Kent, the trust said.<\/p>\n Labour MP for Ashford Sojan Joseph said it was “not acceptable” to use corridors to care for patients but said staff worked “incredibly hard under very difficult circumstances caused by a decade and a half of cuts”.<\/p>\n However, he said senior management across East Kent Hospitals “must do more to step up and improve standards across all levels of care”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Ken Rogers, chairman of Concern for Health in East Kent, said: “This type of patient experience will never end unless there is serious investment in east Kent instead of sticking plaster-type cures.”<\/p>\n Acute care in east Kent will “eventually collapse” without intervention, he added.<\/p>\n He said he had written to Health Secretary Wes Streeting, inviting him to visit the area’s hospitals and calling for further investment.<\/p>\n A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said the incident was “unacceptable” and the government expected the hospital to “take urgent action to address this”.<\/p>\n They said the government was “working at pace” to improve emergency care for patients.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Ms Fletcher said it was “sometimes necessary” to treat patients in corridors despite staff’s efforts, but that use of the cafe, first reported by Kent Online<\/a>, “will not be allowed to happen again”.<\/p>\n The trust was<\/b> ranked 101 out of 134<\/a> in a league table of trusts’ performance that NHS England published earlier this month.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n‘Working at pace’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n