The Care Quality Commission’s series of judgements on dignity and nutrition in hospitals is rumbling on – and South Tyneside Foundation Trust has been added to the list of those deemed not to be meeting “the essential standards of quality and safety”.

Regulators said they had “moderate concerns” about the trust’s standards in relation to “respecting and involving people who use services”. The CQC also said that while the trust was meeting requirements for “food and drink [to] meet people’s individual dietary needs”, it could improve in that area.

Some patients reported staff being “abrupt” and one person in a single room on an elderly care unit “constantly called out for help and rattled the bedrail as staff passed by and we noted that 25 minutes passed before this patient received attention”. Some relevant notes had not been recorded.

Inspectors offered some praise in relation to respect and involvement, for example: “The majority of staff were respectful and polite to patients.” Interestingly, it added: “Staff mainly referred to patients by their first names and several staff called patients ‘darling’.”

Serious shortcomings in dignity, nutrition and respect for patients have only become more high profile in recent years and months.

A dignity and nutrition review of Barnsley Hospital Foundation Trust found it was not fulfilling the requirement to meet patients’ nutritional needs. But most trusts in the region which the CQC has reported on have met standards. York Foundation Trust was praised. The report said: “They said they had been treated with courtesy and respect and that their privacy and dignity had been well protected.”

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