If this is in Scotland I can maybe be of help going through the reporting system? You may have already got it in hand of course!
I do live in Scotland. I thank you for the offer of help. However, I do not wish to make a complaint. One reason is that I do not want to become involved in a long legal wrangle. I do not think that would be productive. It would also take up more energy than I have right now.
What I found out is that the NHS is no different to any other organisation, all are equally bad and getting worse. I used to be a teacher and in the NHS I saw the same symptoms of decline as I have seen in teaching as well as in many other walks of life. So instead of formally complaining, I think that writing about my experiences such as in forums is more useful. I am also writing about my hospital experiences as part of a larger piece of writing that I hope sometime to get published.
As I said, the experience of hospital was a real eye opener. For example, I had thought to feel secure, to feel looked after, in hospital. Not a bit of it.
In the big hospital wards comprised individual patient rooms. The resulting isolation made one feel very, very vulnerable, as did the frequent upheaval of being moved to a new ward every couple of days. Also, the individual rooms had a windowed corridor-wall where anyone wandering the corridors could look in and see the patient. (At times I did feel a bit like a zoo animal when there were lots of visitors around.) That was mostly ok since I needed to be able to see the comings and goings to feel less isolated. However, on one occasion, being too weak to clean myself properly after enduring a particularly lengthy and unpleasant session on the toilet, I returned, exhausted, to my bed. My clothing and person were soiled and not wanting to soil my bed as well, I lay on my bed face down. There I waited until I could get some strength back to reach for the bell and call a nurse. I had on a pair of hospital net knickers and an open-at-the-back hospital gown which must have been open for suddenly a nurse barged into the room. She had seen me from the corridor. Far from asking me if anything was wrong, she angrily accused me of exposing myself. She made me feel as if I had done something wrong, as if I was a pervert or something. When I told her that I was too exhausted and weak to clean myself she did clean me up. Yet despite my explanation, she showed me no sympathy. She didn’t make a very good job of cleaning me up either, for when I got some strength back I had to go into the bathroom and clean up again - as well as I was able, that is.
The cottage hospital especially had no provision for patients without (a) money and (b) next of kin. For example, since I had no next of kin to visit me, I had no one to do my laundry. I had to wash my own clothes, in secret, and surreptitiously dry them over radiators etc. (I did not want to risk drawing the nurses’ attention to my laundry – they could be very hostile – hence my secrecy.) If any nurse did realise that I was having to do my own laundry, then s/he never let on. Yet surely they must have known since I had no visitors. Even though the hospital had a washing machine and tumbler drier, I was never offered the use of them. Also, unlike the big hospital, the cottage hospital did not provide patients with essentials like toothpaste and toothbrush. I had no money to buy any. Even if I did have money, there was no one I could ask to buy me toiletries. I ran out of toothpaste 2 days before discharge, and that after eking out my supply to make it last as long as possible.
Water was another contentious issue. I, and the other patients, had tremendous difficulty getting the nurses to supply us with water. In the end, myself and another patient went to the water cooler to get our own. We even got water for other some of the other patients.