A WOMAN has labelled a hospital as “abysmal” – after it lost her husband who was being treated there twice in the space of a single day.

Rita Grinnell’s husband, Derek, was admitted to Worcestershire Royal Hospital, in Worcester, after he collapsed at home in November.

When she went to visit him in Avon 3 Ward on Saturday, November 19, she was surprised to find another man was in his hospital bed.

But the problems began when she asked staff where he had been moved to and no-one was able to tell her.

“I realised straight away he had been moved,” said Mrs Grinnell, who lives on Ambleside Drive, in Worcester.

She spoke to nurses on the ward and, after a 20 minute search, they found Mr Grinnell had been moved to the medical short stay unit.

Mrs Grinnell went to visit him there and stayed with him until 5pm. But when she called the ward to check on him later that evening he had once again been moved – and again no-one knew where he was.

“I phoned to ask how he was and the nurse said she hadn’t heard of him,” she said.

“I told them he was there at 5pm. They are supposed to ring you at home and tell you your relative has been moved - that wasn’t done.”

When Mr Grinnell was eventually found on the Evergreen Ward, his wife said to him: “I have had a hell of a job finding you, nobody knew where you had gone.’”

Mrs Grinnell said: “It is abysmal. It is disgraceful that a hospital doesn’t know where a patient has been moved to.

“Each time, in his own mind, he thought he was going home and he found himself back in hospital somewhere else. He is a gentleman who never makes a fuss, everybody who meets him falls in love with him.”

A spokesman for Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust said: “We always strive to deliver high quality, individual care and we are disappointed that on this occasion this is not what the family experienced.

“We would urge them to contact us to arrange a meeting so we can better understand what happened and help prevent this from happening in future.”