When Doris Valler was admitted to the Royal Sussex her family grew concerned about the standard of care she was receiving.

The complaints her daughter, Valentina Bailey, catalogued included dirty wards, drips not being replaced for two to three hours after running out, meals being forgotten and other patients waking her mother to use her nurse call bell because alarms near their beds were not working.

Valentina said at one stage her mother, who was 74, collapsed on the floor and could not move. She managed to alert one of the other patients, who called for help. Valentina claims staff did not tell her about the incident.

Problems with food proved particularly difficult because Doris was diabetic and her blood sugar levels fluctuated if she did not eat properly.

When she was finally discharged Valentina said the taxi driver who took Doris home had to help her from the car to her front door because she was so weak.

While virtually every hospital in the country could share tales of staff being so overworked they forget some of the basic needs of their patients, Valentina feels a large part of the reason her mother was treated poorly was because she was elderly.

She said her mother's treatment was part of the ongoing debate, highlighted during the past few weeks with Age Concern revealing cases of older patients having their medical notes marked 'Not For Resuscitation', about elderly people being left to fend for themselves while the NHS cared for stronger patients who were more likely to make a fuss if things didn't go to plan.

Patients' watchdog Brighton, Hove and Lewes Community Health Council has been keeping a dossier of complaints from people in the area who feel their loved ones are receiving poor NHS treatment because they are older. Several cases have already been documented.

Valentina said: "My father felt my mother was sent home to die.After her second emergency admission in six weeks my mother was discharged on a Saturday morning having been diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer.

"She had not been issued with any form of discharge papers and had received no treatment whatsoever throughout her 19 day admittance.

"She was issued with various medications, including morphine tablets plus a bottle of painkillers with the instruction 'for use at your own discretion'.

"Within just eight hours of being home my 78-year-old father had to call out a doctor and again 36 hours later as my mother's condition deteriorated rapidly.

"Her GP arranged her third re-admittance via accident and emergency, once more with the obligatory minimum six-hour wait for a bed on a ward where she finally started to receive treatment."

Valentina, said her mother, who died on March 20, had previously been fit and active and still worked part-time as a cleaner at the French Convalescent Home, which the Argus has been campaigning to save.

In November 1999, Doris, who lived in The Broadway, Brighton, started suffering a stomach upset and constipation - the first signs there might be something seriously wrong with her. Her GP recommended she was admitted to the Royal Sussex.

Valentina, who lives on the Isle of Wight, described the time her mother spent in hospital as frustrating and upsetting.

She said the emotional turmoil had been compounded because the family had lodged a formal complaint with the trust in February and were still waiting for a response.

She said: "Older people are left out and are forgotten in the NHS. People seem to think they're old so they don't matter.

"Six weeks after her third admittance to hospital my mother died at the Martlets Hospice in Hove, having spent her final days receiving a standard of care the Royal Sussex can only dream about."

Brighton Health Care NHS Trust, which runs the Royal Sussex, has strongly denied Doris' standard of care suffered because she was elderly.

Trust chief executive Stuart Welling said: "I was very concerned to receive Mrs Bailey's formal complaint about her mother's care and immediately asked that a full investigation of all the issues be carried out.

"Because of the length and clinical complexity of the complaint, the investigation is taking longer than the guidelines set out in the NHS complaints procedure.

"In order to do justice to the important concerns raised in the complaint it is essential our investigation is thorough.

"In the meantime I would like to make it absolutely clear Brighton Health Care does not discriminate against patients on the grounds of age.

"Decisions about a patient's care are normally made with the full involvement of the patient or, where that is not possible, with the patient's relatives.

"It is not, of course, possible for the type of highly-specialised care available in a hospice to be provided in an acute hospital surgical ward. However, the trust recognises the care of those patients with incurable disease is extremely important and we strive to provide the appropriate level of support.

"I very much regret the impression Mrs Valler's family has gained about the care provided to her."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.