VISITORS to the new Queen Elizabeth University Hospital were left like "people queuing for the Christmas sales" after a lift failure.

One of the lifts in the main entrance broke down on Monday, leaving large queues of visitors and patients to build up.

Pensioner Elizabeth Smith said she had been in to see an ill relative and was forced to climb six flights of stairs to get to the correct ward.

She claims she saw 47 people trying to get into a lift with a capacity for 26 people.

Although there are six main lifts in the hospital, not all of these go to every floor.

Mrs Smith, from Rutherglen, said: "Trying to get into the one lift is like people queuing for the Christmas sales.

"The problem with the lifts have been going on for three weeks now.

"It's really not good enough that this problem has not been properly sorted at one of the hospital's busiest times of the year."

The Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, formerly the Southern General, has been blighted by teething troubles since it was opened by the Queen earlier this year.

Most recently, it has failed Scottish Government waiting times targets.

The government has set an interim target for at least 95 per cent of patients to be seen and subsequently admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.

It was met in the week ending December 6 when 95.3 per cent of patients were seen.

But more than 200 people waited longer than four hours at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.

A spokeswoman for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said: "One of the six public lifts at the hospital is currently undergoing repair work.

"Engineers are working to bring the lift back into service as soon as possible."