"My mother was admitted to Tiptree Ward recently."

We did not wish to make an official complaint but we did have some serious concerns about her stay wich was 3 weeks. Mum was admitted with a broken leg, whilst in A& E we couldnt fault the support, communication, efficiency and kindness and respect my mum was attended to. As she was unable to weight bare there was a great deal of effort and difficulty locating a hoist to transfer her to comode and bed, but once they did this was done efficiantly.

Mum was firstly admitted to Medical Day Ward again all very good. While mum was in Tiptree Ward communication became very bad, making mistakes about why she was there, not listening to her when she said she was not allowed to weight bare and transfering her manually and she had no choice but to put weight on it, when the code above her bed said bed care only. At least two nurses didnt know what the code meant and hadnt bothered to findout. But luckily after another x-ray all was fine.

My mother has not got dementia her memory and communication is spot on, but she was treated as if she didnt know what she was saying, it seems that all elder people are treated as if they have memory problems whether they have or not. We didnt feel safe leaving mum as we saw the other patients who mostly had dementia we not always supported to eat and drink and left asking for the toilet distressed, it very much depended on what staff were on and whether it was the weekend which was a lot worse with less staff, in fact i spent a lot of time helping the other patient at meal times. Mum has now been transfered to a Care Home for repite while she recovers and is doing well and hopefully we will have her home soon.

I feel strongly that the way older people are treated in hospital needs to be seriously looked into, luckily we are a large family and were able to work a rota so mum wasnt on her own for too long as i am sure that some of the time she would have had her needs neglected and become very distressed.

Before mum was admitted to Tiptree Ward we were feeling confident because of the way she was treated, so this made us even more shocked about how it was different on this ward.

There was a lot of staff working hard but the needs older people have especially with Dementia need more staffing hours and to be treated more kindly and with Dignity and Respect.