A mum has told reporters how she and her one-year-old baby daughter were forced to get a bus home from hospital at 4.30 in the morning in just their PYJAMAS after being refused transport.
Single mum Joanne Partridge had traveled to the William Harvey hospital in Kent in an ambulance with little Grace after she fell ill at home and couldn't breathe.
She said paramedics had assured her she would be taken home once Grace had been treated.
When the little girl was deemed fit enough to be discharged, her mum was told they did not meet the criteria for a lift home, and would have to catch a bus. Only patients suffering severe side effects from treatment, or who are in a wheelchair or needing a stretcher are routinely taken back home.
"I didn't know what to do," Joanne told the BBC, adding that she said to the nurses: "I am in pyjamas. I am not being vain, but would you get on a bus in your pyjamas?"
Joanne, herself a former nurse, said she thought it was 'pretty disgusting to be stranded with your child 25 miles from home' and that she is glad she in now 'out of that line of work'.
The hospital has apologised and said that Joanne and Grace should not have been expected to make their own way home, despite the rules on transport. They said an investigation is underway, and that they are 'determined' other patients would not be left stranded in similar circumstances.
NSL, the organisation which provides the non-emergency transport in Kent, told the BBC it was not consulted by the hospital over the decision not to provide Joanne and her baby with a lift home.