"Terrible end of life care"

My mum unfortunately had a stroke which worsened her dementia and led to a decision to withdraw feeding and fluids which she could not swallow herself. The family were well informed and involved in that decision, although we had not been at all happy with medication decisions or responsiveness.

Once this decision had been made the doctor and nursing staff's attitude largely changed and I felt we were being a nuisance in trying to keep mum distress free in her final days.

This was summed up in our last two experiences on the ward:

1. The staff nurse shooed the family out of the ward waiting room and said that they would get mum "to the fridge", not once but twice. This nurse needs some training. Even worse, this was just before visiting and the family had to leave the ward in tears, passing all of those waiting to visit their loved ones in both stroke wards.

2. The doctor formally came round to certify death just after 2pm on Wednesday, but failed to do the paperwork before leaving at 5 for a 5 day weekend (Easter). This means that we cannot progress with registering the death and transferring mum to the more caring environment of the funeral home.

So now we need to wait until next week to register the death make arrangements for the funeral.

We would like to say how wonderful the care assistants have been in dealing with both mum and ourselves. They all shone.