John Pollard, who conducted inquests into all the deaths on the same day, said that he would be raising his concerns with the management of Tameside General Hospital in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire. He condemned as “absolutely despicable” the treatment of Watkins Davies, an 84-year-old war veteran, who went into hospital with a fractured hip and contracted MRSA, the hospital superbug, The inquest was told that Mr Watkins, a widower, was the victim of a catalogue of failures in basic nursing care. When he fell out of his chair, while trying to wash himself, no X-ray was carried out to assess any additional injuries.

His family claim that he was left to lie in his own waste and was in severe pain for hours because of shortages in nursing staff. His meals were left up to 6ft out of his reach. Relatives told the inquest that they repeatedly had to ask a nurse to help him.

Ivor Davies, his son, said: “My father did not receive adequate medical and nursing care. There was a lack of communication between nursing staff and us.

“I went in one day and my dad was lying in excrement.

“God only knows how long he was like that. I asked whether the infection was MRSA, only to be told it wasn’t. A couple of days later I was told it was MRSA after all.”

Mr Pollard recorded a verdict of accidental death.

He also heard that Hilda Douglas, 75, died at the hospital from a heart attack after fracturing her pelvis.

The family of Mrs Douglas, a voluntary worker from Droyls- den, near Manchester, said that she broke her hip when she fell from a hospital trolley without sides. There was no record of the fall.

Edward Douglas, her son, said: “There was one nurse per three beds and the nurse said she could not cope.” He said that medication had been left on the floor.

Recording a verdict of death by natural causes, the coroner said he found this astonishing. “What if that had been vital medication?” he asked. “It is absolutely chaotic.”

A third inquest heard that Raymond Lees, from Ashton-under-Lyne, who died in May, contracted MRSA after undergoing a knee replacement operation. During his time in the hospital his waist shrank by 14 inches.

John Lees, his son, said that it had taken him three hours to discover that his father had not been bathed and that hospital staff did not appear to know his name.

“The nurse said, ‘He gets himself up, dresses himself and does his own teeth’,” Mr Lees said. “In fact, he was wearing the same pyjamas he had been wearing for three days. The nurse was cruel and cynical.”

A fourth inquest was told that James Kelly, a pensioner from Stalybridge, Tameside, was recovering from surgery but died from pneumonia after he was left sitting in his dressing gown in a draught.

Mr Pollard said: “In most of the issues, the nursing care, not the operations or the general medical staff, but the basic care of people, has been in question. I shall be contacting the chief executive and looking at all future deaths at Tameside General Hospital very carefully.”

Andrew Burnham, a Health Minister, said: “I understand that the hospital trust has in place a range of measures to ensure that patients receive the high-quality nursing care they have every right to expect. These include daily rounds by matrons to check on patient care, including nutrition and hydration, all of which are reported back to the director of nursing, who has ultimate responsibility for the standard of care.”

A spokesman for Tameside and Glossop Acute Services NHS Trust said: “These cases are being investigated internally and the trust will act on the results of these investigations.”

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