Prime Minister David Cameron has admitted that harrowing cases of lack of care for elderly hospital patients – similar to one which led to the Telegraph & Argus mounting our With Respect campaign last year – shocked his Government into a drive for dignity.

The premier visited NHS hospitals yesterday to highlight new measures to improve standards to ensure every patient in hospital is cared for with compassion and dignity in a clean environment.

Under the initiative nurses will be told to undertake hourly ward rounds while members of the public will be allowed to inspect hospitals.

Mr Cameron said most patients were happy with NHS care but there had been well-publicised cases of patients not getting good basic treatment on issues such as food and drink or being treated with respect.

The T&A’s With Respect campaign is aimed at changing attitudes to the elderly in our society and winning them the respect and dignity they deserve.

It was started after Julie Farmer sent an emotional letter to this newspaper describing how her 85-year-old mother Betty West, was “distressed, humiliated and left in pain” in the weeks before her death at Bradford Royal Infirmary.

During her 32 days in BRI, Mrs West’s family witnessed what they believed to be a catalogue of failings including a painful sore caused by attacks of diarrhoea which nurses failed to clean up, dirty sheets and bed clothes unchanged, a buzzer being left on a trolley she was unable to reach so she could not summon help with her meal tray, being left without water and her lips becoming dry and parched due to dehydration, lying on a hard metal frame because there was no air in her mattress and doctors not communicating with the family.

Speaking yesterday of his Government’s drive for improvements, Mr Cameron said: “I think the standard is very high. In the overwhelming majority of cases people rightly revere our nurses in Britain, but it’s quite clear, in a limited number of cases, standards have fallen below what is acceptable.

“We have seen that in CQC (Care Quality Commission) reports, we have seen it with our own experiences as constituency MPs, elderly relatives not getting the care they need. And so what we need to do is make sure that doesn't happen.”

Mrs Farmer, 49, has welcomed Mr Cameron’s campaign to improve care standards in hospital and praised the T&A’s campaigning on the issue.

Tomorrow is the first anniversary of her mother’s death.

She said: “A year has passed quickly and after the efforts that the T&A has put in to change things you would like to think that it has made some impact.

“For Mr Cameron to say now we still need to see improvements is worrying. Nothing seems to be making an impact really but I hope that by him doing this we will finally start to see a turn-around and things beginning to change.”

Mrs Farmer said since her mother’s death, many people had come to her with their stories of poor hospital care for elderly patients.

“By the time you are elderly it seems you become a second class citizen,” said Mrs Farmer. “It is not until it is highlighted by someone of high status that people say ‘yes – it is true – this is happening’.

“If you don’t have first-hand experience, like us, it is difficult to believe. Mr Cameron is right to raise the issue. If you have compassion you are not going to say the standard of care given to my mother is acceptable.

“I am not looking forward to getting old with the current state of the NHS. There seems to have been so much talking about this subject and not a lot of doing, really, and in the meantime there are people suffering unnecessarily.

“This is happening on our doorstep to people who have lived through a world war and served their country. I hope things now begin to change.”

The Prime Minister announced the following priorities: l Patients, not paperwork, to rid a swathe of bureaucracy that stops nurses from doing what they do best.

l Regular nursing rounds to check that patients are comfortable, properly fed and hydrated, and treated with dignity and respect.

l Leadership on the wards, with people seeing a figure of authority there.

l New patient-led inspections of hospital wards with local people being part of teams assessing cleanliness, dignity and nutrition and their findings published.

l New ‘friends and family test’ to ask whether patients, carers and staff would recommend their hospital to families and friends in their hour of need.

Results will be published and hospital leaders who fail this test will be held to account.

Mr Cameron added: “There’s something really fundamental that needs to be put right fast. We need an NHS which ensures that every patient is cared for with compassion and dignity in a clean environment.

“We know the vast majority of patients are very happy with the care provided by the NHS. I’ve seen the NHS at its very best – the incredible people for whom nursing is a true vocation, who go beyond the call of duty and combine great medical knowledge with great care.

“But I also know we’ve got a real problem in some of our hospitals with patients not getting the food and drink they need or being treated with the respect they deserve. The Care Quality Commission found one in five hospitals wanting.

“I am absolutely appalled by this. And we are going to put this right.

“If we want dignity and respect, we need to focus on nurses and the care they deliver. Somewhere in the last decade the health system has conspired to undermine one of this country’s greatest professions. It’s not one problem in particular. It’s the stifling bureaucracy. The lack of consequence for failing to treat people with dignity.

“Nursing needs to be about patients not paperwork. So we are going to get rid of a whole load of bureaucracy that stops nurses from doing what they do best. And, in return, patients should expect nurses to undertake regular nursing rounds – checking that each of their patients is comfortable, properly fed and hydrated, and treated with dignity and respect.”