"concern with treatment at meal time"

EDEN WARD.

At mealtime a patient had to complain about not enough chicken in his curry. He asked staff in an appropriate manner if there was any more in the kitchen, the staff said there wasn’t.

He then asked staff if they could ring the main kitchen to see if they could send some more up which they did.

So that meant he had to wait for it to be sent up. All the other patients had finished their meal and handed in their cutlery, the patient waiting for his meal tried to hand in his cutlery so all the others could leave as they were waiting. A member of staff said you will need that cutlery for your meal so the patient kept the cutlery, the patient asked are you going to make everyone wait and staff replied yes as you still have cutlery, and they can wait until you had your meal which he still didn’t have at that time.

So, we all sat there waiting. The ward manager came out and said someone has an appointment in a bit and asked what was going on. The staff said that one patient is still waiting for his meal. They said Well give him a spork and everyone else can go.

Later the staff member was heard stating they were trying to put pressure on that patient because he made a complaint about his meal. The said staff wanted all other patients to wait for him, staff wanted us to complain and have a go at that patient, but we didn’t.

At the time we all felt as if we were made to wait on purpose because that staff wasn’t happy with the patient for making a complaint about his meal and encouraging peer pressure.