Grubby And Drunk! My Nurses Were No Angels Says Peer

A Tory peer has delivered a devastating attack on nurses in a West hospital where he was a patient, describing them as “grubby, drunken and promiscuous.”

During a Lords debate on NHS patient care, Lord Mancroft said that the nurses from Bath’s Royal United Hospital “were an accurate reflection of many young women in Britain today”.

Lord Mancroft, who was treated as a patient at the hospital last year, told peers: “I have always enjoyed very good health until last year.

“Shortly after the parliamentary recess started, I was taken ill and over the last half of last year and the beginning of this year I became an expert at being cared for in a variety of different hospitals.

“When I was taken ill I was taken to an accident and emergency place in a West Country hospital.

“I can only tell you that it is a miracle that I am still alive. The wards were filthy. Underneath the bed where I was, there lay a piece of dirty cotton wool and it remained there for several days. The ward was never cleaned.

“It was a gastroenterology ward with lots people with very unpleasant infectious diseases. Neither the ward, nor the tables, nor the beds, nor the bathrooms were cleaned.

“I was extremely infectious at that time but they took no precautions with me at all. They were furious when my wife wanted my bed cleaned when it clearly needed cleaning.

“It was appalling. The nurses – probably the most important people in this very complex area – were an accurate reflection of many young women in Britain today.”

Lord Mancroft said he did not want to “generalise” about the nurses and there had been “one or two really wonderful ones”.

“But the nurses who looked after me were mostly grubby – we are talking about dirty fingernails and hair – and were slipshod and lazy. Worst of all, they were drunken and promiscuous.

“How do I know that? You see, if you are a patient and lying in a bed and being nursed from either side, they talk across you as if you’re not there.

“So I know exactly what they got up to the night before, how much they drank and what they were planning to do the next night. I can tell you it’s pretty horrifying.

“My bed was next door to the nurses’ station so you could see how the whole thing was being run. Actually you couldn’t. I’ve seen lots of things being run during my life and I couldn’t tell you after a week who was in charge.

“I had absolutely no idea who was in charge and who was telling who to do what.

“The man opposite me was dying and I imagine he died two or three days after I left. I don’t know what he was dying of because he wasn’t doing a lot of talking but I do know that he virtually died alone.

“The nurses thought he was a nuisance. They changed his bottle, did his pills and occasionally fed him and propped him up but basically this man died alone in a British hospital in the 21st century and I had to watch them do it.”

The hospital said it had received no complaint but would be contacting Lord Mancroft to discuss the matter.