Hospital admits care concerns

Changes follow death of elderly patient
A FAMILY who were outraged at the way their late mother was treated at the Royal Oldham Hospital have sparked a change to the way older people are cared for.

Miriam Morgan spent 21 days in hospital after she fractured her hip in a fall at Avonleigh Gardens, Clyde Street, Oldham.

She waited eight days for an operation after she was admitted. By the time the 88-year-old was discharged, she was 10lbs lighter and “a very different person,” say her family.

Her daughters, who between them visited her daily while in hospital, said their mother, who had dementia, was neglected and treated without dignity. They struggled to get information about her condition despite repeated requests.

They discovered soiled nightwear stuffed in her bedside cabinet on top of food and clean clothes, were criticised for taking their own food for their mother and resorted to taking her a flask after being told she would have to wait 90 minutes for a drink because it was during a handover period.

One of her three daughters, Elaine Fixter, said: “Before she went into hospital she was bubbly, but came out with a completely different personality. At one point she was almost comatose and wouldn’t eat or speak.

“The operation went well, it was everything else she had to go through that was the problem.”

Mrs Morgan’s condition continued to deteriorate and she died at Avonleigh just under three months after her fall. Her three daughters decided they wanted to be by her side and didn’t want their mother to go back into the Royal Oldham.

Mrs Fixter added: “While we appreciate the fall and the operation did not help her, we feel that if she had been treated with the correct care and attention, with the stimulation and encouragement she needed, she may well have been put on the road to recovery.

“My mother may have been 88 and suffering from dementia but she was still a person and deserved to be treated humanely and with dignity and respect. I pity anyone like my mother who goes into that hospital without relatives to stand up for them — they must be in a sorry state.

“People with dementia should be treated completely differently, because their needs are more specific.”

Mrs Morgan died on July 13, 2009, on the day her family were due to meet with hospital bosses to discuss their concerns over her care.

The family complained to the hospital and Ombudsman. Marian Carroll, director of nursing at Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the Royal Oldham Hospital, said: “We accept that some aspects of Mrs Morgan’s care were not at the highest standard we expect for our patients.

“We have taken her family‘s concerns extremely seriously and introduced a number of measures and changes as a result, particularly aimed at improving the care for vulnerable patients with dementia.”

Mrs Carroll said she was personally reviewing all related complaints about the standard of nursing care provided to older patients, dementia awareness training had been introduced for staff, and a new specialist orthopaedic geriatrician, who leads medical management of patients with problems of old age, including dementia, had been appointed.

She apologised to Mrs Morgan’s family for the “shortcomings” in her care, and offered sympathy for their loss.

Mrs Carroll said: “We have learned lessons and we have taken action. This has been a wake-up call for us and reinforces the need for us to look at ways we can improve the care we give to vulnerable patients, particularly older patients with dementia.”

The Ombudsman concluded that while there were failings in Mrs Morgan’s care, they did not contribute to her death.