A mother is furious after a man was allowed to push in front of children and pensioners waiting in Ashford’s busy A&E department because he was friends with a doctor.

Ema and Aaron Thomson spent most of Saturday night at the William Harvey Hospital with their four-year-old daughter, Lily, who had suffered a cut to the head.

The department was extremely busy and the parents were told it would be a long wait.

They say they were four hours into their six-hour wait when a man, who seemed to have been in a fight, walked in and was sent straight through to the ward because he appeared to know one of the working doctors.

Mrs Thomson, from Singleton, has now complained to the hospital.

She said: “I am disgusted at their service. It was really busy in the waiting room – there were so many people who were fuming.”

Lily had cut her head open at about 3pm on Saturday during a day out to Hastings with her mum, dad, 13-week-old brother Kenny, and family friends.

They were at the Flamingo Amusement Park when the stool Lily was standing on gave way and she smashed the back of her head on a silver tray on a slot machine.

Mrs Thomson, 28, said: “I’ve never seen so much blood come from a little person.”

An ambulance was called and she was treated by paramedics, who glued her wound together.

Later that day, however, her head started to bleed again.

Panicked, Mrs Thomson called 999, and was advised that Lily would need to be seen by a doctor within the next six hours.

The family drove back to Ashford and met Mrs Thomson’s mother at the William Harvey Hospital at around 9pm, so that she could take baby Kenny home.

Lily was seen by the triage nurse at around 10.30pm and then returned to the A&E waiting area.

Mrs Thomson said: “Lily was really good, really well behaved and no tears.

“She only really needed stitches or for the wound to be glued again.

However, Mrs Thomson said a man came in at around 1am.

She added: “You could tell he had been in a fight. He had blood on his head and looked like he had a shoulder injury. He was very loud and demanded to be seen.

“His wife came in and tried to calm him down and took him outside.

“When he came back in, the staff explained he had a long wait and advised that they could go to Canterbury.

"The doctor said come with me. He went straight through. The whole waiting room was shocked." - Ema Thomson

“Then a doctor came past and recognised him.

“They had been in the middle of checking in, nothing had been logged. They hadn’t been through triage.

“The doctor said come with me. He went straight through.

“The whole waiting room was shocked.

“One woman had a detached retina and had been there since 8pm, another girl had breathing problems.”

Mrs Thomson complained that night to the site manager, who said they would look into the situation.

She also called the East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the William Harvey Hospital, on Monday morning to make an official complaint.

Lily was finally seen on Sunday at 3.20am.

Mrs Thomson added: “I don’t want anything out of this, only the reassurance it won’t happen again.”

A spokesman for the Trust said: “A patient was called out of turn by a doctor personally known to him.

“The patient was called through and had an initial assessment due to the doctor being concerned about the patient’s out-of-character behaviour.

“The patient was returned to the waiting room and the operational site manager also spoke to patients in the waiting room and offered an apology.

“We would like to assure patients that when they arrive at our Emergency Department, they are assessed, prioritised and treated entirely according to urgency and need.”