Hospital put woman in 'dirty' cubicle without food

A hospital has promised to improve its A&E after a family told the BBC their 77-year-old mother was left in a "dirty" cubicle for 22 hours.

Jill Clarke was admitted to Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham with a chest infection on 19 April, and her family claim she was left alone all night without any food or drink.

Her son Peter said that when his mother was finally seen, she was given a meal he would not feed "to a pig" and was later left bruised by a ward nurse.

A spokesperson for the hospital apologised and said it was experiencing high levels of demand.

Ms Clarke, from Shirley, requires full time care and lives with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which causes breathing difficulties.

She was discharged from Heartlands on 23 April, and is recovering from the infection.

But her family have been left furious by her treatment during the four-day stay, and believe the current state of the hospital is unacceptable.

Mr Clarke claimed his mother had been put on a trolley with dried blood on, and then left in a "filthy" A&E cubicle with used syringes on a nearby window.

The 45-year-old shared pictures of a meagre-looking meal his mother was apparently given, despite not having been offered anything to eat or drink for a long time.

"I wouldn't have fed that meal to a pig," he said.

"It was disgusting and they were giving that to a 77-year-old lady who hadn't eaten in 24 hours."

Mr Clarke further claimed his mother was hurt by a nurse who had been unable to put her cannula in properly.

It happened after Ms Clarke was taken from the cubicle and put onto a ward, with a photo appearing to show her with a bruised arm.

The hospital did not comment on this claim specifically.

The family have made a formal complaint.

Mr Clarke explained his relatives had a proud history of working in the NHS.

For many years, he was employed as a switchboard operator and a porter at West Middlesex University Hospital in London.

The family, who now live in the West Midlands, have had to take Ms Clarke to Heartlands three times in the past five months.

While Mr Clarke said April's visit was the worst, he believed the service was consistently poor.

"It's every single day," he said. "It needs a complete shut down and a thorough deep clean.

"If [my] old boss had walked into A&E at Heartlands and did a quality control check, he would have shut the A&E down."

Heartlands Hospital is run by University Hospitals Birmingham.

The trust has found itself under scrutiny since being heavily criticised in a March 2023 report over cases of bullying and a toxic environment.

In February last year, inspectors said urgent and emergency care at Heartlands had improved from inadequate to requires improvement.

A further Care Quality Commission probe in November found concerns about surgery and medical services at the hospital were "unfounded".

A Heartlands Hospital statement said all concerns were taken seriously and were being looked into appropriately.

"We are sorry to hear about Mrs Clarke's experience and we're grateful to her son Mr Clarke, for raising their concerns about her care," a spokesperson said.

"Our emergency department is experiencing high levels of demand which can make maintaining the environment challenging at very busy times.

"We have now instigated an intensive programme to improve the environment for all our patients."

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