The inquiry into the failings at Stafford Hospital has heard of “utter chaos” on the wards with patients screaming to try and get a nurses’ attention.
The public inquiry, which comes after previous investigations and a damning report by the Healthcare Commission into failings at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, heard from Julie Bailey whose mother died at the hospital in 2007. The poor standard of care her mother received led to her starting a campaign group called “Cure the NHS”.
She told the inquiry chairman, Robert Francis QC, that on one occasion her mother had collapsed on a ward after being left with no oxygen supply because there were no nurses on the ward to reconnect the canister. Miss Bailey said that her niece was at the hospital at the time and that, despite a healthcare assistant trying to reassure her that a nurse was on her way, one didn’t arrive and it took until Miss Bailey arrived at the hospital herself for action to be taken.
She told the inquiry: “I believe that if my niece hadn't gone in to see my mum at that particular time when she collapsed then she would have died there that day. I am convinced of it. After that I decided that mum would never be in that hospital alone and that is what we did.”
