Standards of care at Stafford Hospital were compared to those of a 19th-century workhouse yesterday by the families of patients who died there.

Relatives branded the hospital “abysmal, appalling” and “a disgrace”, saying that their loved ones had been left or neglected for hours or even days without receiving proper medical attention.

Peter Burnhill, 84, was seriously ill with leukaemia when he was taken to the hospital by ambulance a year ago as he struggled to breathe. But after arriving at the emergency department, he was left to wait on a trolley for six hours.

Sonia Burnhill, 66, said that her husband had low oxygen levels, but was seen only occasionally by nurses. “They didn’t actually do anything for him, he wasn’t given anything to eat or drink.” When he was moved, it was to an assessment ward — where he stayed for a week, though doctors said it should only have been two or three days.

Mrs Burnhill, from Stafford, said delays made his condition worse. “It was if he’d been dumped on a holding ward. He was eventually transferred to an inpatient ward where he spent three days but the whole experience just made him very weakened and stressed. He decided he needed to go home. He came back on a Tuesday and died the following Sunday,” she said.

“I know he was seriously ill but he had a good prognosis and you think that when you go to hospital you will get very good care.“He deserved better.”

June Chell’s husband Ron, 80, was admitted to the hospital after suffering a heart attack in July. She said that he was left lying in his own urine and was attacked by another patient before he died at the hospital from a heart attack.

“It’s going back to the days of the workhouse that we read about in books. It’s so uncaring and cold. I cannot believe it’s 2009 and that standard of care is acceptable,” she said.

“The care he received was abysmal.”

Julie Bailey, 47, has spent 14 months calling for an inquiry into the hospital. She was so worried about her 86-year-old mother Bella that she and relatives slept in a chair at her hospital bedside for eight weeks. “What we saw will haunt us for the rest of our lives,” she said. “Patients would fall out of bed and we would have to hunt for staff.”

After her mother’s death in November 2007, Ms Bailey formed Cure the NHS, which gave evidence to the Healthcare Commission’s investigation. Yesterday she said that the watchdog’s report didn’t go far enough.

“I am really disappointed with the recommendations,” she said.

“We need a complete sweep of that hospital. We need to look at what is happening in the NHS. Why is finance leading over patient care?”

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