A woman died in a Kent hospital corridor waiting to see an A&E doctor after being brought in by ambulance.

East Kent hospitals trust said it had launched an investigation after an elderly lady "at the end of life" passed away at the Queen Elizabeth Queen Mother Hospital in Margate.

The tragic news has sparked shock and anger among health campaigners in Kent who claimed conditions at the hospital's emergency department "appeared" to be getting worse.

Further details about the pensioner's death have not been released after the incident - which took place earlier this month - which emerged following a memo sent out to paramedics.

The note sent by South East Coast Ambulance (Secamb) to its staff on Tuesday, January 22, revealed the woman in Margate was one of two patients who died in corridors in the south east during the same week, the Guardian reported.

Paramedics have been told to make sure to fill in delayed handover forms after waiting for 15 minutes to hand over a patient into the care of hospital staff, the paper said.

The forms act as "documented evidence" that paramedics are taking care to monitor their patients so that "if anything does happen, it may highlight early deterioration occurring" and was not a paramedic's fault, the note says.

East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust (EKHUFT) says it is now investigating and sent condolences to the woman's family.

A spokesman said: "Very sadly an elderly patient at the end of life passed away shortly after being brought to the hospital by ambulance and we extend our condolences to their family."

They confirmed the trust had launched a "serious incident" investigation but said it could not comment further while it was ongoing.

Carly Jeffrey, from Save Our NHS in Kent (Sonik) said: "This is shocking and saddening news. No patient should lose their life in this way, waiting to be seen by a doctor.

"It appears that conditions at QEQM A&E have worsened to a degree where tragedies like this are able to happen.

"Something is dreadfully wrong in our NHS; we know that last year at William Harvey Hospital, paramedics were forced to keep emergency patients waiting in ambulances until the hospital could take them in."

The Guardian also reported a second woman had died at a hospital in Redhill, Surrey, in the same week.

Secamb says it is working with East Kent hospitals to carry out an investigation.

A spokesman for Secamb said: "Handover delays at hospitals is an issue we monitor closely across our whole region, as they can impact on our ability to respond to patients in the community as quickly as we would like.

"While the care of a patient officially becomes that of the hospital 15 minutes after arrival, we recognise that improving handover delays takes a whole system approach and we work closely with hospital and NHS partners to reduce delays.

"We are pleased that overall we have seen a reduction in the number of hours lost to hospital handover compared to last year.

"We take patient safety very seriously and have processes in place where issues can be formally raised for further investigation.

"Any Serious Incident raised goes through a formal process and involves a full and thorough investigation and we publish the outcomes of investigations in line with national guidelines.

"However, we would never publish aspects of any investigation which could lead to the identification of a patient."

Ms Jeffrey added: "Every quarter of the NHS is saying that staffing problems need to be urgently addressed and that pressures on frontline staff are unacceptable.

"We must all ask why there isn't a major national debate and in-depth parliamentary scrutiny happening right now to find solutions.

"Local people are very upset about this news but are praising the frontline staff at the hospital."