I HAD TO PUT A HOSPITAL BED IN MY LOUNGE AND LOOK AFTER MUM MYSELF

IN JULY last year, Pat Wicks, 87, suffered a stroke which left her unable to speak and paralysed in one leg and arm.

During the three months she spent in hospital, doctors and physiotherapists worked to build back her strength.

‘The consultant said to me, my God your mother is strong,’ says her daughter Debbie, 68, from Essex. ‘Soon afterwards she was communicating again, eating more and laughing at her grandson on FaceTime.’

Soon, Pat was ready to be discharged under the NHS’s Discharge To Assess scheme – she’d be moved to a local nursing home temporarily, where a team of nurses and doctors would assess her needs before organising a care package. Yet after two weeks, no assessment had been made.

‘All the rehabilitation she’d been having at the hospital had stopped,’ says Debbie.

‘She was stuck in one room alone all day and we’d walk in to find her covered in urine, as she couldn’t get up and the sheets weren’t changed.

‘The staff had no idea about her stroke injuries – they’d pull her arm forcefully and she’d cry out in pain – or that she couldn’t swallow. A few times I saw them trying to feed her bread, which could have made her choke.’

Eventually the care home’s GP did pay a visit. Debbie says: ‘I was there. He asked me about Mum’s medication and then said he’d prescribe paracetamol, and that was it.’

In the end, Debbie decided to take her mother home.

‘It was tough,’ she says. ‘We put a bed in the living room. My sister and I took turns to sleep downstairs, in case she got ill in the night. I heard nothing from the hospital.’ Pat died in January.

‘Who knows what would have happened if Mum would have had the proper care she deserved,’ says Debbie. ‘I don’t think Mum was discharged for an assessment – I think she was discharged to die.’