The Healthcare Improvement Scotland report into Wishaw General sets out findings from an announced inspection between 28 May and 30 May and the unannounced follow-up inspection on 19 June 2012. The report finds:

• A gap of 15-16 hours between patients receiving their evening meal and breakfast the following morning. There is little provision made to provide suitable snacks out with meal times.
• Insufficient information in care plans about the level of assistance they may need with eating and drinking. Inspectors had to request that staff assist patients twice.
• Some patients told inspectors:
  “Nursing staff are obviously understaffed at various times and this affects the care they are able to give”. (page 7)
  “I have been in three wards and would like to have stayed in one ward”. (page 7)
  “On one visit we were appalled to find him [father of the interviewee] sat on his bed naked in his own urine with no screens around him and this was during visiting hours”. (page 8)
• Inspectors also found that there was an inconsistent approach to mental health screening and assessment across the hospital.
• There is no bed management system. Staff spoke of the pressures place on them to “board” patients (moving them round the hospital) and told inspectors that the system seems to be “getting worse”. They were told by a local carer organisation that people being moved round the hospital was a frequent complaint reported to them by patients and their families. (page 13)

Responding to the report, Motherwell and Wishaw Scottish Labour MSP John Pentland, said:

“This is a shocking and deeply disturbing report into the management of Wishaw General Hospital. Elderly patients deserve the best of care and instead are being forced to suffer treatment that is nothing short of Dickensian.

“I will be asking questions in Parliament to Nicola Sturgeon who is ultimately responsible for how our hospitals are run and will also be seeking a meeting with Acting Chief Executive Ian Ross and the management of the hospital itself.

“With around 2,500 nurses and midwives having been cut from the NHS in Scotland by the SNP, this is another example of the NHS in Scotland reaching breaking point as a result of the cuts – and the worst is yet to come.”