A patients’ watchdog has demanded a “full investigation” into the NHS Tayside board after fresh details of a damning draft report into older people’s care at Ninewells Hospital emerged.
Last month The Courier revealed inspectors found elderly patients were left on trolleys in the corridors of an admissions ward.
A draft of the unpublished Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) report seen by The Courier states that as many as 35 patients waited up to six hours for a bed.
However, HIS shelved the report the day after managers met NHS Tayside chief executive Gerry Marr, who is also on the inspectorate’s board.
A version of the report which omitted references to the number of patients affected was later released on January 30.
NHS Tayside says the figure was removed because it is factually inaccurate and denied that there is a conflict of interest.
Scotland Patients Association chairwoman Margaret Watt has called for the inspectorate’s findings to be published in full.
She said: “What we’ve seen so far isn’t happy reading and the full report should be published now. There’s no good reason why they can’t publish it now.
“If they don’t, we’ll get people who can. After all, every patient is an employer we are the stakeholders.”
Inspectors who visited Ninewells in September 2012 admitted that “some” patients had waited on trolleys and in wheelchairs in the “unit corridor”.
However, the draft report went further, stating: “We later learned that there had been 35 patients waiting on trolleys and in wheelchairs in the corridor during Monday afternoon and evening.”
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