An elderly Alzheimer’s patient was left battered and bruised on a specialist NHS dementia ward after being repeatedly attacked by other patients, his family has claimed.
Dementia patient Patrick Byrne, aged 84, needed six stitches to his head in A&E in the worst alleged incident less than three months after being admitted to the Elderly Mental Infirm (EMI) ward at Royal Worcester Hospital in March 2009.
Relatives were told the pensioner had fallen on a fire extinguisher, but later discovered in A&E notes that paramedics reported he had been attacked by another patient on the EMI ward with a walking stick, which still had blood on it.
Daughter Jean Palfrey and her husband David, of Birmingham Road, Warwick, have now referred the case to national health watchdog the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and the Parliamentary Health Ombudsman.
They also have concerns Mr Byrne had been prescribed anti-psychotic drug Respiridone while on the Berkeley Ward, which they claim turned him into a “zombie”.
The allegations come just weeks after care of the elderly at another Worcestershire health trust was criticised by the CQC last month.
Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust said it had “let down” patients unable to get water and at risk of malnutrition at the Alexandra Hospital.
Worcestershire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust, which runs the EMI ward at the Royal Hospital, said the paramedic reports on Mr Byrne’s case were wrong and it claimed no-one witnessed the incident, although a patient with a walking stick with blood on was next to where Mr Byrne was found. The trust claims he may have walked through the blood.
“You don’t expect the elderly people you love to be treated like this,” said Mrs Palfrey, a NHS care worker in Warwickshire for 25 years.
“My father was a happy, tactile, smiling man but after going on to that ward, he was like a zombie. He became frightened of everyone and wouldn’t let anyone touch him.
"He never let us hug him after that and never smiled again. The trust had a duty of care to the patients, but they let my father down. The quality of care he received was appalling and there were staffing shortages that I think played a part.
“I raised concerns about the drugs but the doctor refused to take him off them, then I started getting calls about dad being pushed and attacked on the ward by another patient at least five times.
‘‘He had cuts and bruises and I told medical staff they needed to put something in place to make sure it never happened again, but it did, again and again until it reached crisis point and he ended up in A&E black and blue needing stitches.
