Hospital to apologise for care failures

Published on 24/12/2012 00:38

A hospital trust in England will apologise to the families of 38 people who suffered what human rights lawyers have called “appalling” failures of care, following successful legal action.

In one of the worst cases of mistreatment, an 84-year-old man starved to death at the 
Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, Worcestershire, in June 2009.

Some patients treated by the Worcestershire Acute NHS 
Hospital Trust were left thirsty, with drinks left out of reach, while others were left to sit in their own excrement.

In another instance, an elderly woman went unwashed for 11 weeks and later died, and a man who was unable to feed himself, would simply have his uneaten food taken away by the nurses, 
according to his daughter.

There were further claims from the families of a man whose ribs were broken while hospital staff attempted to lift him, and a great-grandmother whose hip fracture went undetected by doctors.