"A terrible place!"

About: Northampton General Hospital (Acute)

My father was taken into the hospital Jan 2013 with a chest infection. His Age was 78yrs he had dementia. He was left without fluids or pain relief. We had to insist on them swabbing his mouth which was dry. We were not informed when they moved him to another ward. My mother was told by a junior doctor that her husband was dying, no empathy at all! We had to insist on them putting him on a drip and giving him pain relief. End of life care was not discussed at any stage. He developed sores but was not turned on a regular basis. Once moved to another ward we thought things would improve, sadly not. He started to recover from the infection so started to get up out of bed. Having dementia the infection had heightened the confusion. They prescribed him temazapam to sedate him. This resulted in falls also on one visit we found him so drugged up we couldn't wake him up! We came across staff signing the obs charts without even checking his condition or comfort. We noticed information hadn't been entered on care plans or daily charts. Nurses had entered fluids and food taken on one chart but he clearly hadnt had them due to not being able to wake him up due to sedation.We were so disgusted with the standard of care we discharged him and continued the care at home. He went on to live a further 8 months at home under the family care. We are convinced if we had left him in hospital we would have lost him earlier in the year.

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Response from Northampton General Hospital (Acute) 10 years ago
Northampton General Hospital (Acute)
Submitted on 08/01/2014 at 14:52
Published on nhs.uk on 09/01/2014 at 03:00


We are very sorry to hear about your poor experience at the hospital in relation to the care of your father, and we would welcome the opportunity to carry out an investigation and discuss this with you. If you wish to make a formal complaint, please write to the Chief Executive, Northampton General Hospital, Cliftonville Northampton NN1 5BD. Alternatively you could contact our Patient Advice and Liaison Service on 01604 545784 or by email to pals@ngh.nhs.uk who would be pleased to help you. Thank you.

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