Yusuf Mahmud Nazir's uncle sobs on Good Morning Britain describing fight to get five-year-old treated

Zaheer Amhed broke down with emotion as he told Good Morning Britain hosts Susanna Reid and Ben Shephard this morning how he pleaded with staff at Rotherham General Hospital to admit his nephew. He said: “I begged them, I begged them. I've never begged for anything in my life and I begged and I begged.

"I said he needs help, he needs treatment, can you please help him? They said 'what do you want us to do? What do you want us to, find beds out of thin air? We haven't got the space, we haven't got the doctors, what do you want us to do?'"

Mr Amhed also revealed Yusuf was turned away despite being seen by a doctor who told him he had “the worst case of tonsillitis he had ever seen”. When Yusuf started to struggle for breath, his uncle called for an ambulance. The ambulance crew said they would take Yusuf to Rotherham Hospital, but when Mr Ahmed told them he had already been sent away from there, he claims he was told: “You do realise you've called an ambulance, we're not a taxi."

Yusuf was taken to Sheffield Children’s Hospital on the insistence of his family, but despite immediate treatment, the infection had spread, causing multiple organ failure, which resulted in several cardiac arrests. Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust promptly launched an investigation into Yusuf’s care, with the chief executive, Dr Richard Jenkins, adding: “I want to assure families that we have an appropriately staffed medical paediatric service who provide support to our medical colleagues working within our Urgent Emergency Care Centre when required. We, like other district general hospitals in the South Yorkshire region, do not provide paediatric intensive care beds.

“The Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust is a specialist trust who do provide paediatric intensive care beds.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “All children deserve the highest levels of care and we are taking urgent action to ensure no families have to experience these kinds of tragedies.”