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It is always distressing to watch nurses failing in their duty of care to patients but that is what we saw in a recent Channel 4 Dispatches programme 'Undercover Angels' (31 January 2005). This piece of 'investigative journalism' sent two undercover nurses to work as healthcare assistants (HCAs) at two different hospitals, one in Baling and one in Bath. The programme centred on various incidences of neglect that the HCAs encountered within the wards.
These included one patient being left sat out too long in a chair against medical advice, saturated in urine as a result of a leaking catheter, and a patient whose mouth was very dry and dirty but who had not been given mouth care. Another patient was found lying in a bed with bandages on her legs that were caked in faeces. Medication was left by bedsides, and patients were not given assistance with feeding, although one patient was filmed being force fed. Nurses were also shown talking to each other over patients as if the patients were not there and when they did talk to the patients they demonstrated...