"awful"

What could be improved

My Mother has been admitted to the Short Stay Unit via A&E on several occasions during the last 2 months. With a few notable exceptions the nursing staff on this ward have been the worst I have ever come across. They are often short staffed (or so the nurses told me) which leaves vulnerable patients without the care or dignity they deserve. However, I listened to 3 nurses chatting about how one of them had done a bank shift on another ward "where patients are cared for and everything is calm" and the nurses expressed their wish to transfer to this ward. Interrupting their conversation about this ward where patients were cared for, was a relative who said her mother had been pressing the call button for the last 30 minutes because she needed a bed pan. The nurses told the relative they were busy, and would attend to her as soon as they could. And they went right back to gossiping about this "ideal" ward where the patients were cared for. In the mean time, the patient soiled their bed.

Patients (my Mother) needing a high degree of infection control were left without bed linen changes for many days, and indeed it was only at our insistence that bed linen was changed after 4 days. It was then left for a further 3 days (at which point she was discharged, who knows how much longer it would have gone unchanged). The floor in her room was not properly cleaned, fecal matter remained from day to day and on one occasion I needed to clean fecal matter from my Mother which had been on her feet for more than 24 hours. Frankly, I am appalled and wouldn't wish a stay in this unit on my worst enemy.