"The equipment needs updating, please"

My mum had many falls while in a local nursing home, because she was left to transfer by herself from armchair to commode during the day and evening. I got a call in the middle of the night to say she'd had a fall and had been taken to the local hospital. As I live alone and don't have a car I had to get a taxi. My mum was left in A&E for several hours due to lack of beds due to seasonal respiratory complaints.

Having had three strokes and rheumatoid arthiritis mum was not able to walk apart from a few small steps. Mum needed to use the toilet so the staff on duty were able, with my help, to get her off the stretcher bed into a wheelchair. Her pain was very bad and she was a tough old lass. It was not possible for staff to take her to a proper toilet, so we had to put her through the ordeal of transferring her to a mobile commode, then back to the wheelchair. This we had to do a few times with mum in pain.

When a bed was available, mum was not transferred to a stretcher bed again, but the porter on duty said she would have to get into an obselete porter's chair or he wouldn't push her to the ward. I had my right leg in plaster at the time, but offered to push her to the ward myself. The staff nurse could see I wasn't pleased with the porter, so sh said 'Let's forget that you have to use old, out-of-date, not fit for purpose chairs, and get on with the job', to stop the porter from walking out as only two were on duty that night.

The equipment needs updating please, if not now done. Also the staff we saw in A&E were brilliant, so well done to them for coping as best as possible. Thank you for your help, it may help others. The fall caused a death because mum layed flat and couldn't breathe properly and so was in great pain. She was a kind person and I believe that all the poor treatment in nursing homes due to lack of staff to provide care to a high standard made her life miserable in her twilight years. All the times paramedics got called out to pick her up and treat her because she was left to transfer from chair to commode on her own.

PS There was only one porter on duty the day I broke my foot. My pal had to push me about for ages while I got x-rayed and set in plaster.