Hi, I haven't been writing on my blog for some time, partly because my mum died a really horrendous death at the hands of various professionals, and because I have tried all this time to get my voice heard above the deafening silence that pervades the corridors of complaint. I have fruitlessly pursued all avenues available to me and have had no success whatsoever. Quite the contrary: my attempts to gain some sort of retrospective justice for my mum has hit brick walls all around, with everyone from the police to the CQC and on to the Ombudsman. What a big surprise that is.


I have also been threatened to keep quiet, been obstructed by the issue of missing medical notes and had to hold onto my sense of rightfulness in the face of manifold lies from professionals. Absolutely no one in the Health Service, the Care Home where I put my mum for a second medical opinion when her own GP just shut down on her, or the police have had the decency or the courage to stand up and help me. Yes, I have had local politicians trying to help and various friends supporting me, but, you've guessed it, they have absolutely no power to exert over a system that slams down the shutters to protect neglect and abuse. Another huge surprise, yes?


Well, towards the end of my mum's life, I put her into respite care to get her access to another doctor.... or to try to do that, it might be more accurate to say. At that point all hell broke loose. I did not imagine that mum could be neglected and abused in just a few days in a Care Home with me going in there twice a day. But the level of abuse, neglect and medical negligence was astonishing. They accelerated her death and had her screaming to get away from them. They left her soaking in her bed,they fed her solid food which she couldn't swallow, they took four days to get a doctor to see her at all, inspite of her being delirious, but worst of all..... no, no, it's not the worst of it, I'll come to that later, the second worst thing of all was that they left her for a week with no medical treatment for what was an obvious UTI...... My mum. My lovely, innocent, adorable, naive, beautiful mum. My mum who had never, NEVER, done anything wrong in her whole life, ended up a completely powerless victim to professionals in her own home and then sustained massive abuse when I tried to get her help in respite care. And no one cares that she died a death in hell because of them. No one is interested.You see,no one wants to hurt professionals. It's a "given". The doors are shut.. and the only recourse open to me now is to go on TV. Imagine that. The only justice you can get in this shameful country is to go on television and tell the truth.


Lets talk soon, but please remember that there are many people here involved in this case, who did this to me and my mum, who don't want the truth to be told. Did you ever think that a cover-up requires collusion from professionals? You're right.... It is not JUST the perpetrators who are guilty in cases like this; it is the whole system that does everything it can, including threatening people like us, so that the truth gets hidden. Whenever you hear that something is supposedly being done to stop the cover-up-culture, don't believe it; it goes against human nature and basic group psychology to expect that abuse and neglect will be revealed and dealt with. Believe me. I know.

Elderly abuse in the NHS, 3

I didn't know whether to tell my mum that she had been excluded from a test to determine eligibility for a drug. Should she know that her autonomy had been walked all over? Would it make her give up on her life? In the end I told her yesterday. I thought it might give her back her fighting spirit.

She didn't know that there had been a test that she had been denied.Inspite of going to the meeting (alone) with the oncologist where the "whole picture" was discussed, she had no idea that there was a drug she might have had to hold back the cancer. Doesn't this prove the point? That no one, let alone someone elderly, can assimilate, or question, information of this gravity in an appointment when alone, and that it is imperative not to go to these appointments unsupported. But,as we know, the appointment wasn't to discuss all her options, it was to persuade her to do what the doctor wanted her to do. I suppose it is more accurate to say "what the whole clinical team wanted for her" since all the staff were involved in taking away not only her autonomy, but her right to information as well.

The whole clinical team? So here we have the discrepancy of the team deciding to opt my mum out of treatment and the S.H.O. telling me that she had/ or would have the test. Strange. The S.H.O. was not telling the truth.... and yet the SHO would have been part of the team. So at what point did they decide to make decisions FOR my mum and exclude tests from her secretly? The answer is I don't know. Why should we be told, we are only the relative and the patient with no rights at all.

The new consultant is reviewing my mum's medical notes and will come to a decision. I fancy that the decision will be the same one that was made before, don't you? Doctors stick together. It is almost impossible to get a truly honest second opinion because doctors support each other.

Look, I'm coming back when I find out yet another forgone conclusion. I will let you know.

Meanwhile, please never trust an SHO., it could be a matter of life or death. Speak ONLY to the Consultant and if you can, get copies of the notes every week. If you have the notes in your possession they cannot come back and alter the notes should something go wrong with your loved ones treatment.

Best to all........