No hospital review after dignity drive

The Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust chief executive said he had ‘personally sought reassurance’ about the cases highlighted by readers during a series of special reports – but would not be carrying out a full review into care for vulnerable patients at the site.

After reading our campaign coverage, Mr Eames said he had been assured there were processes in place to make sure patients were properly cared for.

He added: “This includes reviewing all complaints and making sure action is taken to address individual issues and to monitor whether there are particular problems in any part of our service.

“We have also reinforced our systems to ensure people who need help with eating or drinking are supported and senior nurses routinely check to make sure these systems are working; that staff are regularly reviewing patients and that patients can reach their call bell if they need extra assistance.

“I am confident this approach involving regular and routine monitoring of clinical areas and of patient experience will be the most effective way of ensuring standards of dignity are being maintained at all times.

“We are also rolling out a programme of work with our teams to reinforce the standards of care we expect from all our staff.”

We launched a campaign calling for a major review of basic care for the elderly at Dewsbury hospital in February after families told us their loved ones were being let down at the hospital.

We wanted trust bosses to take on board the issues we highlighted and, if there were systemic problems within the service, to say what they were going to do.

Mr Eames added: “We know that we will not always get everything right but it is important that people let us know when things go wrong so that we can act quickly make improvements.”