ARE you really committed to ‘Martha’s Rule’, Dr Simon Enright, as you state so proudly in last week’s Chronicle?

The rule is named after a girl called Martha Mills, whose family’s concerns about her were not heeded before she died.

Does Barnsley Hospital, as you say, recognise the implementation of this rule ‘as an important step forward in improving our responsiveness to patients’ and families’ concerns’?

Are you really working with the support of NHS England to ensure that concerns about a deteriorating patient are listened to and acted upon?

Do you ever descend from that self-congratulatory cloud you’re on to come to earth to see what is really happening? Because then you might have noticed me, concerned that no one was recording that my 91-year-old frail mother wasn’t eating and she would have starved to death had we not gone up to feed her.

My concerns that she had dementia but there wasn’t a red tray in sight. My concerns that when she was trying not to soil herself because the commode never arrived and she was a proud woman with her dignity intact, that she was told ‘to just do it in your pad and it will be picked up later’.

I was indebted to those fabulous caring nurses and doctors up there who were on everything, thank god for them, their kindness, their excellence, they exist aplenty in Barnsley Hospital, but even some of them had their own concerns.

The speech therapist had concerns over the state of my mother’s mouth, so much so that after taking nearly an hour to clean it because she’d had NO mouth care whatsoever (does anyone any more, despite it being a basic) she put in a formal complaint about the quality of care.

My concerns that on the penultimate day of my mum’s life a consultant judged her fit to be discharged when she was a zombie? Overturned by a thorough and fantastic consultant.

That same night MY CONCERNS were that she was unfit to be left alone in a private room because she had shingles, was delirious, was pulling out her cannula, she kept getting out of bed and was at major risk of falling, was at a proven risk of aspirating and I was promised - PROMISED - she would be monitored on a one-to-one basis or I wouldn’t have left her.

But MY concerns were ignored, she wasn’t supervised, and my darling mother died alone – she aspirated. My concerns that I rang up to check on her the next morning and I was coldly told she was dead.

‘She vomited and we think she choked to death’.

Those words have tortured me for eight months and will forever. I am more mad with pain and anger and heartbreak with every day that passes but I’ve held it back publicly until I saw that letter last week and my banks broke.

Are you convinced your system is working, Dr Simon Enright? Because I’m not. Nor are the many who have contacted me with similar - and worse - stories.

Last weekend, on a dog walk, I met a friend who had many concerns over her frail mother’s health, but she was still dismissed from Barnsley Hospital, so sore and blistered underneath from having to sit in her own urine untended, she was crying from the effort of sitting down.

I am so looking forward to reading the second arse-covering-attempt report from the hospital about my mum after already having the first which raised more questions than it answered. Must be good, it’s taking months to get to me.

The day hospitals became businesses full of box-ticking paperwork before centres of care was the day patients became a casualty, pun intended. I wouldn’t pat yourself on the back yet, Dr Simon Enright.

At least not before you’ve stopped Martha Mills spinning like a top in her grave.