"Patients being sent home in middle of the night"

I have recently been involved in several cases involving The Diana Princess of Wales Hospital, Grimsby and elderly people being sent home in the middle of the night.

(1) An 82 year old lady fell and broke her wrist, she was taken to A&E and it was xrayed and set in a pot. The lady was sent home at 3am to her flat where she lived alone. The lady had no relatives and was expected to manage all alone with no care.

(2) A 94 year old gentleman was sent home from hospital at 1am after being taken in earlier by ambulance with breathing problems, on arrival back at his flat it became clear that he could not get out of car without his wheelchair, that was locked in his flat on the 10th floor. The taxi driver refused to go and get it and a support officer from the building had to be called out.

(3) An 80 year old gentleman was sent home in the early hours of the morning after suffering chest pains. The staff of A&E felt it was appropriate to give the gentleman morphine and put him in a taxi with just a thin pair of pyjamas. The gentleman died several hours later of a heart attack.

There are discharge policies and procedures to cobble dogs with but if no one is adhering to them, then they're not worth the paper they're written on.