"Answering the help buzzers"

My mother was in hospital for 4 weeks, starting just before the Christmas period. She was on two different wards as well as ICU. ICU was great but when on the normal wards; patients often didn't want to press their alarm bell/buzzer button as they didn't think anyone would come anyway. Indeed during the night this was indeed a pointless exercise as it was even worse then. On one occasion the button had been pressed and noone came for 3 hours. In fact the patient that needed assistance (excessive vomiting) was on the floor being sick and the other 3 patients in the ward had also pressed their buttons to try and get help; but noone came. It was difficult as the other patients were hooked up to drips and found it difficult to go across and help her instead. I understand that there had been an incident elsewhere on the ward; but there is never an excuse for abandoning people, when they have serious conditions.