"Appalling Care & Treatment"

This review is about the care of my 85 year old mum. My mum was admitted to RPH on Wednesday 26/11/14 with swollen legs and limited mobility. I left her in a bed in MAU with the sides up. Later that night she was moved into Ward 18. They didn't bother putting the sides of the bed up and during the early hours of Thursday morning the nurses heard a bump. My mum had fallen out of bed and the consequences of this fall were extensive bruising on her face, a huge hole in her forehead a swollen eye. She went for a scan and a brain bleed was found. They put a call don't fall sign on her table (after the fall) Staff were supposedly mortified by what had happened. When I questioned the sides of the bed being left down, one of them said it is worse with them up. My mum could hardly move so it would be impossible that she would have climbed over the sides of the bed, she just rolled off. We found on a number of occasions when we visited, that her call button was left on the wall out of reach so she could not access it if she wanted to. Most of the nurses had an awful attitude, not only to my mum but to other patients in the ward . When we wanted a commode we were told 6 people were waiting so we'd have to wait. When we went to use the toilet we found the contents of commodes left on the floor, not even flushed down the toilets. My mum was left in bed when physios said she should be sat out. I know they must have been short staffed but the concept of a hospital is to increase the patients physical and mental health - we found quite the opposite. On a separate occasion a medicine nurse had been to my mum on their rounds, we discovered that some of her tablets were in a basket of fruit, these tablets should have been taken under supervision and signed for. My mum became very confused so they said she may have a water infection, they took a urine sample in the morning and when I went to visit at 5.30 p.m. that sample was still on my mums bedside cabinet. They said they had forgotten about it. My mum was stuck in that ward with staff who I'm afraid did not follow the care with compassion the hospital professes to give. We were told by a doctor she could go to Broadfield House in Leyland but we had a OT who was very negative about this. I finally went to see PALS and gave them a bit of the story. We got my mum out on 19/12/14. Within 3 days she was walking with her frame she was never encouraged to do this in ward 18. She was speaking normally. She spent all that time stuck in ward 18 and for at least the last 10 days nothing at all was done for her. The final straw even when they sent her to Leyland they left behind a new pair of slippers. We were told someone would bring them, as expected we were let down again. Short staffed or not there is a duty of care that every hospital should take seriously.