"Problems on KI Royal Hallamshire Hospital"

Earlier this year I was on KI for an operation.

I was very concerned that the high bed occupancy and generally frailty and age of the patients stretched the ability of the staff to provide adequate care.

Patients were having to wait for attention for nursing needs and staff were generally too busy to give the reassurance and little touches that these patients, often quite confused and ill, needed.

In particular patients were missing obtaining their meals both because those bringing the meals would stand at the door of the ward and call peoples names. if they did not reply because they were asleep or did not hear them because of hearing problems (more likely in this age group)they did not get their meal.

Even if they did there was no one to help them eat it and it was taken away before they could even respond to the question "Didn't fancy it then?" as it was whisked away when the trays were collected.

I felt that there was a real danger of an accident waiting to happen given the high dependency needs of the patients and the stretched staff.

Is this a consequence of those who are younger and fitter and likely to pose fewer complications after their operations being sent out to private hospitals with the consequence that more stress is caused on wards like K1 because they have to support a patient group which is relatively skewed towards higher levels of medical and physical problems?