Dementia gran left on doorstep by hospital on Xmas Day

A GRANDMOTHER with dementia was discharged from hospital on Christmas Day and dumped on her doorstep by taxi with no keys – dressed in her pyjamas and slippers.

Neighbours of grandmother-ofsix Florence Myerscough, 76, had to take her in after she was unable to open her front door and was left ‘soaked’ in the rain.

Disorientated Mrs Myerscough was admitted to Royal Bolton Hospital with chronic back pain at tea time on Christmas Day, but discharged about 10pm.

Her family are furious the hospital did not contact them before sending the vulnerable woman home to an empty house.

Her daughter Karen Bye, of Hal-

‘I’ve got your mum here’

liwell, Bolton, said: ‘ We were under the impression Mum wasn’t coming home. If she was, then we should automatically have had a phone call to say she was being discharged. I got a phone call from her next-door neighbour to say, “I’ve got your mum here”. I said, “You’re joking”.’

Describing the disorientation her mother suffers due to her condition, Mrs Bye said: ‘If she goes outside to look in the back garden, she can’t open the back door again, even if she has the key. If you talk to her about what happened yesterday, she can’t remember a thing.’

Heather Edwards, of the Bolton NHS Foundation Trust said: ‘Our protocol is we instruct the taxi driver to ensure the patient is not left outside their home, but seen to enter safely.

‘We are not clear what happened in this particular case and would ask Mrs Bye to get in touch so we can discuss it further.’