Bosses at a Norfolk hospital have been forced to apologise to the family of a woman who was left in a bed "dripping in urine" before her death.

Kim Stroud died at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital at the age of 65 with a coroner ruling her death from pulmonary fibrosis and bladder cancer was as a result of natural causes.

But following an inquest into her death, a series of failings in her care have been highlighted by area coroner Yvonne Blake in a report to prevent future deaths.

These included:

  • Medication being abandoned by her bed and marked as having been taken,
  • Mrs Stroud being found in her bed soaked in urine "on several occasions",
  • Her family being left to wash faeces from her body.

In her report, Mrs Blake wrote: "Mrs Stroud's relatives found pots with tablets in on several occasions just left on their mother's bedside table.

"These had been signed for as given.

"On one occasion, Mrs Stroud had concealed nine tablets inside her incontinence pads because she thought she was being poisoned - clearly not supervised in taking these."

Mrs Blake added that it was "extremely unsafe" to leave tablets as they could have been picked up by other patients being treated on the ward.

The coroner's reports adds that Mrs Stroud's care "appears to have been non-compliant with both hospital policies and the Nursing and Midwifery Council regulations".

Following the report, bosses at the hospital have apologised to Mrs Stroud's family for the shortcomings in her care.

Pippa Street, chief nurse at the QEH said: "On behalf of the trust I offer our sincere condolences to Kim Stroud's family.

"We were very sorry to hear the experience reported by Mrs Stroud's family, which falls below the standards we would expect to provide for a patient being cared for at the trust.

"We are currently reviewing this case to allow us to take forward any appropriate learnings and changes to improve patient safety."