‘NHS is broken’ says family after 100-year-old is given no food or water at A&E

HOSPITAL ACCIDENT & EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT DESCRIBED AS ‘A ZOO’

- BY LAYCIE BECK

A DAUGHTER has labelled the NHS a “broken system” after her elderly mum was not given food or water during a 13-hour hospital stay.

Penny Fogg worked for the NHS in Colchester for 35 years and knows “the pressures put on staff” but describes the treatment experienced by her 100-year-old mother as unacceptable.

After being taken to A&E at Lincoln County Hospital, Penny explained that her mum “was not offered anything to eat or drink and eventually wet herself because her call bell was not answered in time”.

She says Lincoln County Hospital “should be ashamed” and that her mum’s experiences at the hospital in recent weeks have been “awful”.

Penny told Lincolnshire Live that she fears that people of a certain age “are just seen as old, a nuisance and an expense, and I think it’s absolutely shameful”.

The Lincolnshire Community and Hospitals Group has since apologised for her mum’s experience.