NHS Funding

Ann Clwyd Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

I am not going to make a speech as such; I am just going to read some quotations from the hundreds and hundreds of personal testimonies that I have received in the last few days.

“I am a former director of nursing at a university teaching hospital…Since my retirement…there have been four occasions when it was necessary for me to visit family and friends in hospital. Each visit resulted in a serious formal complaint about the standard of nursing care and medical diagnosis, experiences that have caused me to be ashamed of the profession I was once very proud of.

In the first incident a friend, dying, was left sat in a chair at visiting time with no pyjamas and his genitals exposed. On making inquires we were told that no clean pyjamas were available.

My mother was in hospital suffering from a bladder infection some weeks after bowel surgery for cancer…When we arrived she wanted to use the toilet, having asked for help several times. We found her being completely ignored so I took her to the toilet myself. On our way there she could not hold the flow of urine, most of which poured onto the floor of the ward. Naturally she felt ashamed, embarrassed and humiliated. At that time, and in full view, not one nurse was attending patients at their bedside and we counted eight nurses and a doctor doing nothing at the nurses station. My family insisted that mother be transferred to another hospital where within two hours she was diagnosed with malnutrition and dehydration—mother had been in the previous hospital for three weeks! Unfortunately the new hospital, a few days later, ran out of colostomy bags and just left mother in a faeces-covered bed.”

Another statement says:

“I was trained as a nurse myself when I was young, and subsequently retrained as a Community Worker and then a Social Worker. I worked in community care Social Work for 20 years. I also witnessed many incidents of inhumane treatments in hospital settings whilst working in Community Care…My… father was admitted to hospital due to some long standing serious bowel problems...Not long after being admitted, my father contracted C. difficile, from which he did not recover. He was frequently left lying in his own faeces. His basic care needs were neglected on every level, and he was made to feel guilty every time he soiled the bed. He developed such severe Thrush in his mouth, he was unable to eat or wear his false teeth. Despite numerous requests for treatment, it was never treated. I also tried numerous times to have him transferred to the small local hospital for palliative care as it was obvious to me that he was dying, but the staff insisted that he was NOT terminally ill…In the end, I DID stand in the corridor in desperation and virtually scream. I shouted at the nurse in charge, ‘The treatment of my father is f***ing inhumane’ and demanded that he was moved for palliative care…This happened after I found my dying father lying half out of a chair with freezing cold bare feet and one light blanket in late afternoon. According to other patients he had been sitting there since early morning. (It was easier for nurses to clean him up if he soiled himself in the chair, although they used the excuse of it being good for him.) He died in the small local hospital 3 days later. The staff there said his bed sores were so extensive and severe, there was nothing they could do for him. They kept him comfortable, and thankfully allowed him to finally die with some dignity and tender, loving care. However, by this time, my beloved gentle father had endured 3 months of indignity, abuse and misery.”

Another testimonial said:

“Your story was so similar to the loss of my dad exactly 2 years ago in our local hospital…he had worked from the age of 14 until his 65th birthday, he was in the RAF in the war and he was treated in the most dreadful way by most of the nursing staff, doctors and administrators at the hospital. We became frightened of pushing them to be kinder whilst he was in their care, in case, if possible, things became even worse. Surely something must be done about this situation. I could hardly believe my ears the other day when a representative of the nursing profession was saying they are pushing for an emphasis on compassion and consideration in nursing—when did this disappear? I would have thought it was part of the human condition to want to care for and help a person or a creature who is suffering.”

Another letter says:

“My friend and I have both experienced appalling neglect and abuse to close relatives at the hands of NHS nurses (at completely different hospitals—one in the Midlands and one in Surrey) who received no dignity or care right up to the moment they died…We find it equally sickening when we hear people…describe nurses as ‘Angels’! We also have to endure the continual mythology surrounding Nursing as a profession, e.g. ‘it’s low paid, low morale, poor staffing levels etc.’—when in reality nursing pay scales have increased dramatically over the last decade and it is now a well paid profession compared to many other jobs like hospital porters., and crucially, even if there is genuinely low morale it never excuses such blatant cruelty.”

Another letter read:

“When I sat at my husband’s bedside I did wonder…why some of the so called nurses bothered to put on their uniforms. The arrogance and indifference of some left me bewildered. The Ward Sister of the ward my husband had the misfortune to be sent to after the excellent intensive ward did not bother to speak to me for the whole 17 days he was on her ward and I am told that she was so busy running the ward she did not have time to talk to relatives…As a Doctor said in an article in the Daily Telegraph a few weeks ago since they made nursing a degree course the wrong kind of people are entering the profession and they think they are above the menial tasks that the old fashioned nurses undertook from day one. We do not need a load of snooty nosed pen pushers, we need compassionate nurses who are entering the profession because they care for people not for the salary.”

Another letter read:

“My father, who was a GP…had a severe stroke. He went to hospital and they would leave the food in front of him to ‘look at’. He was paralysed and could not use his arms or legs. If we were not there, he would not be fed or given any fluid. Then they didn’t pull the side gates up on the bed and he fell out and broke his femur.”

Another letter read:

“I feel that indifference by nursing staff to patients’ suffering and needs is all too common, and those nurses who show kindness and take time with their patients stand out as the exception.”

Another letter read:

“I do know how understaffed the nurses were in my mother's ward but I found a dismissive attitude from all levels of medical staff including nurses, consultants, surgeons and ward orderlies. Nobody cared about our mother or took a moment to get to know her. I barely managed to keep my temper, fearful that an angry outburst from me would rebound on my poor mother. Cruelty, indifference and a cavalier attitude to my mother's care marked her final weeks of a long life in which she devoted herself to the care of others.”

I ask the Secretary of State: what is going wrong?