A terminally-ill pensioner was left all day wearing a nightgown drenched in her own urine, faeces and sick at Frimley Park Hospital, it has been claimed.

Relatives say they were forced to change Nancy Bull themselves on Tuesday after hospital staff failed to attend to her.

Mrs Bull, who has been in the hospital for five weeks, has inoperable stomach cancer that does not allow her to digest food, causing her to vomit at regular intervals.

Her daughter Karen Lynch said she was disgusted about the way her mother had been treated since being moved to a surgical ward two weeks ago.

She claimed nurses were not monitoring Mrs Bull’s food intake or recording when the 84-year-old was being sick.

Mrs Lynch’s mother has gastric and bilious tubes placed in her body in an attempt to aid her digestion process and help her gain weight. But she has lost five stone since being diagnosed five weeks ago.

Disgusting

“I think it is disgusting the way they have treated mum,” Mrs Lynch, 44, said.

“The nurses don’t seem to be interested and I’m very upset about the way mum’s not been monitored. When she puts out urine, sick or faeces it should be monitored to let the doctors know, but I don’t think that’s being done.

“She’s been neglected and the nurses on that ward are not interested in her.

“She’s a proud woman and does not ask for anything and yet they leave her there when she’s clearly in need of some help.

“She had dried sick on the front of her nightdress and they didn’t do anything about it. I was absolutely furious.”

She said her mother vomited into tissues which hospital staff failed to clean up.

Mrs Lynch, a receptionist, said her mother had been treated well when she was in another ward at the hospital.

“Up until now I have had no worries about how they have treated my mum,” she said. “She had a bubble bath every other day and was in good hands."

Frightened

She added: “Basic care is not hard and she is now frightened that if I make waves then she will be treated worse.

“Her condition is like a toboggan going down a hill and we can’t catch her.”

Mrs Lynch said her 16-year-old son Charlie had become upset after seeing the conditions his grandmother was kept in.

“It was horrible for him to see his grandmother like that,” she said.

Mrs Bull, who has ten grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren, was born in Gloucester Road, Aldershot, and lived at Oakway, Aldershot, until she was admitted to hospital.

“My mum’s 84 and of a different generation,” Mrs Lynch said. “She does not want to cause ripples, but I do, because we have not got her for much longer.

“She has been treated like a second-class citizen just because she is old. They should be ashamed of themselves. I want something done.”

Mrs Lynch left messages on Wednesday morning with Frimley Park Hospital’s Patient Advice Liaison Service (PALS) – a body every hospital has to provide information, advice and support to patients, families and carers – before finally receiving a reply in the afternoon.

Collaboration

A Frimley Park Hospital spokesman said: “We, like all NHS organisations, take patients’ confidentiality very seriously.

“Because of this, we are unable to comment on any individual patient’s care.

“We make every effort to work collaboratively with patients and their families in relation to their care. Patients are within their rights to refuse any interventions we offer.

“As an organisation we are more than happy to meet with families and talk through any concerns that families and carers have.

“We ask patients or their relatives to discuss any issues with the ward sister in the first instance and to contact our PALS if they have any continuing concerns.

“Their role is to act on behalf of the patient to resolve any outstanding issues.”

What has been your experience of care at Frimley Park Hospital? Add your comments by clicking on the link below.