"Call for better standards of care. "

My experience of ward D1 at Royal Blackburn hospital was like a waking nightmare. My mother was treated as if she had dementia, when there was no previous diagnosis or clinical evidence. I felt that they used dementia as an excuse for the symptoms of their own failings, like her dehydration, an untreated infection, and poor nursing.

She was not given life-saving treatment, when there was overwhelming evidence, (subsequently revealed in her medical notes) that she had sepsis. Ward D1 is an MRSA isolation ward and early treatment of sepsis is essential. At that time, she was denied food and fluids on a bogus claim of dementia, when it is known sepsis changes cognitive function in not only elderly patients but patients of any age.

When it became septic shock, the facts were covered up and in our view she was denied the care she needed, based on their supposed interest in her quality of life.

I feel this ward really needs serious investigation as I believe that patient safety has been compromised and in my case my mother died as a result of what happened there.

A formal investigation recently acknowledged that my mother had died of sepsis, almost three years after her death. Why did the form after her death say that the family were happy with her care, when it was known I had called in safeguarding? And why is septic shock or sepsis not mentioned on her death certificate, but instead an infection without clinical evidence? Why was sepsis never at any point mentioned to the family?

We are in the process of establishing a patients' forum to call for a full investigation as soon as possible into standards of care at the Royal Blackburn Hospital that have been hidden and overlooked.