"80 year old sent home without a care plan continued"

A member of my family wrote 2 weeks ago that my grandma had been sent home at 80 years old without any care in place. She was taken straight into respite where she was well looked after and sent home.

The early hours of this morning she was rushed into the Friarage with pneumonia, seriously ill. Darlington memorial had taken xrays of my grandma's lungs almost 3 weeks ago and on the diagram placed an 'x' on the bottom lobe of one of her lungs. This is the same part of the same lung they have found the crackles of pneumonia last night. I fully believe this was detected and ignored by Darlington and she was sent home regardless of any diagnosis.

My grandma was made to feel very much an inconvenience whilst in Darlington Memorial - my mum witnessed the doctors involved in treating her whispering and talking about her at the end of the bed without once consulting either her or my mum who was visiting about her condition. This included the 'suspected renal failure' that was mentioned throughout my grandma's notes but denied by the nurses on the ward.

Infact, whilst visiting in Darlington my mum had to help another elderly lady with her legs bandaged up back to her bed after she rung her buzzer to be taken to the toilet and ignored. She felt the elderly patients she saw on the ward were treated as an utter inconvenience and with complete disdain.

Rest assured that social services are now heavily involved and this WILL be taken further if we find that my grandma's suffering could have been prevented if treated 3 weeks and 3 hospital admissions ago.

I am utterly disgusted as a care co-ordinator that someone could have been left to suffer as the result of someone else's poor decisions.