A WAR hero who went into hospital with a broken hip died ‘after months of neglect’, his grieving family claimed today.

They allege 86-year-old Leslie Sherwood would still be alive today if it had not been for the ‘disgusting’ treatment he received at Dorset County Hospital.

The family blame the Dorchester hospital for his death in July following what they claim were months of neglect.

The Second World War veteran went into hospital for treatment to a broken hip and they said his health ‘rapidly deteriorated’ before he died five months later.

His cause of death was officially classed as a stroke but the family believes it was as a result of neglect.

Mr Sherwood’s daughter Carol Powles, said her father, who fought with the Royal Navy during the Second World War, lost every shred of his dignity while in hospital.

Mrs Powles, of Eadon Close, Preston, said her father was left naked on his bed, in bedclothes soaked with urine, and had numerous falls.

She has spoken out about the family’s anguish in her quest for answers from the hospital.

Mrs Powles, 62, said: “This will not bring our father back but it may prevent other families having to suffer as we have and also save some other person’s dignity, which my father lost on his admission to that ward.”

Mr Sherwood, who had been married to wife Vera for 65 years, underwent an operation on a broken hip in February.

Mrs Powles said the ward was so understaffed that she and her sister had to go in every lunchtime and evening to feed their father.

She added: “He was a proud man and if he wanted to go to the toilet, he would tell you but they were just leaving him and he was wetting himself.

“He had so many falls because he wanted to go to the toilet and they were ignoring him.”

When the family arrived and found Mr Sherwood lying naked on the bed, Mrs Powles said the nurses refused to give him assistance until the food trolley had done its rounds.

She described the ‘disgusting’ standards of cleanliness, and how her father was sometimes left unwashed for up to three days.

“We finally got him out and into a respite home,” said Mrs Powles. “But they took him back into hospital when he had a mini-stroke.

“We refused to let him go back to the ward he had been on.

“He went on the Day-Lewis ward – if he had been there from the start with the care and nursing they were giving him, he would still be here now.”

A spokesman for Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said: “The trust has tried to address the issues raised and have offered Mrs Powles a meeting, which has been declined. “The trust is currently responding to Mrs Powles’s latest letter and we hope to reach a satisfactory conclusion for the family.”

Mrs Powles said the family had declined a meeting because they had already met a matron and the director of nursing and felt the meeting was ‘useless’.

She said they would be prepared to have a meeting once the family has seen copies of Mr Sherwood’s medical notes and incident reports, which they have already requested.