James Ware

A MAN with terminal cancer has told of the “chaotic” care he experienced in the Whittington Hospital while an in-patient for three months.

James Ware, who lives in Archway, was admitted in March and said protocols in the hospital stripped away his and other patients’ dignity.

He told the Tribune this week how patients were instructed to share emergency buzzers, and urinate in their beds because nurses did not have time to take them to the toilet.

“We were being told openly that ‘we’re understaffed and you have to do it in the bed’,” Mr Ware said. “Then I was told to use a bottle, but I didn’t know how to use it, I’d never been shown.”

The former disability rights activist said he saw nurses in tears on multiple occasions as they struggled to manage the huge workload, particularly on the Easter bank holiday when wards were merged due to staff shortages.

Mr Ware said: “The nurses had no healthcare assistants. When we arrived on the ward, there were no buzzers. I went and collected buzzers myself and was told to share with the guy in the next bed.

“He was in agony and I was ringing the buzzer for him. It was very distressing.”

He added: “Staff nurses couldn’t meet the demands of the many men on the ward. They were severely understaffed. One of the nurses came to my bed in tears and said ‘never again will I work for this hospital’.”

Mr Ware, who was diagnosed with head and neck cancer three weeks before leaving hospital, has called for an overhaul in the “culture” to prevent others from experien­cing the same ordeal.

He said: “It costs nothing on induction to say to staff to show the patient how to use a bottle [to urinate].

“It will make your life easier, and it will make the patient’s life easier because it’s not pleasant for the nurse or the patient to have to be changing the bed in the middle of the night.”

Now home, Mr Ware has made a short film documenting his trip from his house to the closest bus stop, which is littered with obstacles.

“I have fallen three times. I worked in disability services with kids, and my brother had MS, he had years of slowly deteriorating. This for me was just like a throwback.

“Why did I sit in front of buses in the 90s campaigning for accessible transport?

“You think things have got better, and they have, but not by that much.”

A spokesperson for Whittington Health NHS Trust said: “We’re very sorry that the experience Mr Ware describes does not meet the high standards which we set for ourselves and which our patients rightly expect.

“We have now contacted him to ask him to meet with us to discuss them in more detail so that we can better understand his concerns and learn from them.”