A BUILDER claims he encountered a catalogue of problems at Basildon Hospital when he went in for a routine operation.

Dave Bushell, 64, of Villiers Way, Thundersley, is making a formal complaint about the standard of care he received at the hospital.

He has now been told "drastic changes" are being made at the hospital to ensure it never happens again.

Mr Bushell was admitted for a bowel operation and was told he would be in for up to seven days maximum but ended up there for 16.

His operation was a success and he says he could not fault the surgeons or the endoscopy unit but on the ward he claims no one has time for the patients.

He and his partner, Pam Cadwill, 71, said there were 28 patients on Kingswood Ward at the time and six nurses to care for them.

Mr Bushell alleges:

*It would take nurses up to 40 minutes to respond when a buzzer was pressed.

*He was unable to pass urine because his catheter was blocked and he suffered a urine infection as a result. 

*His stomach ballooned in size because of fluid building up inside him .

*His hospital notes were lost.

He said: “After my operation everything started to go wrong, it was one thing after another.

“I was lying in bed in agony and kept asking everyone to sort out the bottle. I was trying to go to the toilet but couldn’t push enough to get it through this kink in the pipe.”

Mr Bushell said the bottle was eventually swapped for what a nurse allegedly described as a “one of the modern ones” where the pipe can only go straight down through a section of corrugated plastic.

He said he started to empty the bottle himself because a nurse was rarely there to do it when he called and his urine was also meant to be measured and tested, which no one was allegedly doing.

A Basildon Hospital spokeswoman said: “We are sorry to hear that Mr Bushell has concerns about the care and treatment he received.

“We telephoned Mr Bushell’s partner after she wrote to tell us she had concerns, and offered to set up a meeting to discuss these in detail.”

Mr Bushell and Mrs Cadwill met with Debbie Crisp, clinical governance coordinator, on Monday, February 4 and were told “drastic changes” have already been made on the ward, including a nurse who walks round hourly to check if patients need anything and that his points, as well as those raised by other patients, will be put together to form a dossier of information to make sure the same things don’t happen again.