{"id":69077,"date":"2025-08-15T14:46:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T14:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/69077\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T14:46:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T14:46:13","slug":"dying-patients-bundled-into-ambulances-and-transferred-in-their-final-hours-after-cruel-managers-shut-hospice-without-warning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/69077\/","title":{"rendered":"Dying patients bundled into ambulances and transferred in their final hours after ‘cruel’ managers shut hospice without warning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dying patients were bundled into emergency ambulances and moved in their final hours after managers shut down a hospice without warning.<\/p>\n

Nurses on duty at the Sue Ryder Wheatfields Hospice, in Leeds, were left in tears after being told to ring relatives of end-of-life patients with the distressing news that their loved ones were being immediately transferred.<\/p>\n

One nurse told the Mail she was disgusted by hospice management, who she claims sat in their offices eating an Indian takeaway while nurses scrambled to hand over their vulnerable patients to paramedics.<\/p>\n

In total, seven terminally ill residents were moved in emergency ambulances to alternative hospices across Yorkshire between 5pm and midnight on a Friday evening in August last year. Another patient was discharged home.<\/p>\n

One woman died within five hours of being moved, while another two patients had passed away within 48 hours. At least two families lodged formal complaints about their treatment in the aftermath.<\/p>\n

Recalling the distressing closure shift last summer, the female nurse told the Mail she knew nothing about the decision to shut until the angry son of a woman who was \u2018actively dying\u2019 started berating her about his mother\u2019s transfer.<\/p>\n

The nurse, who asked not to be named, said she had since sought treatment for depression because she felt guilty about the way several patients had been treated in their final hours.<\/p>\n

She tearfully explained: \u2018I was sitting at the bedside of a lady who I\u2019d been nursing for a couple of weeks when her son came into the room and started saying, ”Call yourself a nurse, you\u2019re disgusting, how could you do this to my mum?”<\/p>\n

\"Sue <\/p>\n

Sue Ryder Wheatfields Hospice in Leeds was temporarily closed from August to November last year<\/p>\n

\"James <\/p>\n

James Sanderson, CEO of Sue Ryder, admitted the charity had apologised to the families of two end-of-life patients who’d complained about the decision to transfer them at short notice<\/p>\n

\"Nursing <\/p>\n

Nursing staff lodged a grievance and claimed senior leaders at the hospice, including Vicky Hogg, interim head of clinical services, had made it an ‘unsafe and toxic’ place to work<\/p>\n

\"Quentin <\/p>\n

Quentin Krang, who works as head of operations at Wheatfields Hospice<\/p>\n

\"Sonia <\/p>\n

Sonia Clarke was interim service director at Wheatfields Hospice when the nurses lodged their grievance but now works as associate director of healthcare improvement for the charity<\/p>\n

\"Jane <\/p>\n

Jane Turner is the chief nursing officer at Sue Ryder Wheatfields Hospice<\/p>\n

\u2018He told me the hospice was closing immediately and his mum was being transferred in 10 minutes, he couldn\u2019t believe I didn\u2019t know anything about it.<\/p>\n

\u2018It was really upsetting, I was really taken aback I just didn\u2019t know what to say.<\/p>\n

\u2018Then one of the managers came down and confirmed it. She said it was because they didn\u2019t have enough staff, but that was not the case. We had a full compliment of doctors and nurses on that evening and over the weekend. I just started crying, it was so cruel. Within five minutes the first ambulance had arrived.\u2019<\/p>\n

The short notice closure was the culmination of a \u2018chaotic\u2019 few months at the hospice, which staff alleged had become an \u2018unsafe and toxic\u2019 place to work because of the \u2018autocratic’ behaviour of four of the most senior leaders \u2013 then interim service director, Sonia Clarke, head of clinical services, Victoria Hogg, head of operations, Quentin Krang, and chief nursing officer, Jane Turner.<\/p>\n

Two months later, in October last year, around 24 nurses and healthcare assistants lodged a formal grievance, via the Royal College of Nursing, with bosses at Sue Ryder, the national charity which runs the hospice with 30 per cent funding from the NHS.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The hospice re-opened a month later but at least 20 staff have since left, with one lodging legal action, in the form of an employment tribunal, against the organisation.<\/p>\n

The nurses’ grievance claimed the \u2018distressing\u2019 decision to close the unit at the 11th hour was deliberately concealed from them by managers, who then \u2018spun\u2019 an \u2018inaccurate narrative\u2019 to families of patients and local news outlets that they had no choice to do so because of staffing shortages.<\/p>\n

In reality, both medical and nursing staff levels were sufficient and instead nurses say the decision was made after whistleblowing allegations about the hospice\u2019s poor leadership had been lodged with the charity.<\/p>\n

Tracey Taylor Huckfield, the chief people and culture officer at Sue Ryder, who responded to the grievance, which was independently investigated, admitted the closure was \u2018distressing\u2019 because of a lack of communication with staff and that some did hear about it from relatives of a patient.<\/p>\n

She accepted the reasons for the closure communicated to families and the media \u2018were not the complete facts\u2019 and that \u2018whistleblowing concerns\u2019 had previously been raised. But she said that \u2018given the sensitivity and confidentiality of some matters\u2019 managers had \u2018no choice\u2019 but to be economical with the truth.<\/p>\n

Ms Taylor Huckfield accepted there was a lack of trust between managers and nurses, whose well-being had been neglected, and the senior leadership team did order a takeaway on the night the hospice closed because they were \u2018flagging.\u2019\u00a0 However, she claimed all staff had been told to go and \u2018help themselves\u2019 if they wanted to eat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She dismissed the majority of the nurses\u2019 concerns, saying ‘while this collective grievance highlights there have been issues and problems in communication, it is not considered that a serious breach of the organisation’s values and behaviours has taken place.\u2019<\/p>\n

\"Tracey <\/p>\n

Tracey Taylor Huckfield, Sue Ryder’s chief people and culture officer, admitted managers ordered a takeaway while terminally ill patients were being moved to other hospices across Yorkshire<\/p>\n

\"Nurses <\/p>\n

Nurses working at Wheatfields Hospice (pictured) said it had been ‘destroyed’ and they had been ‘let down’ by managers at Sue Ryder, who they branded ‘deplorable’<\/p>\n

\"Mr <\/p>\n

Mr Sanderson (pictured) said they had ‘no choice’ but to close the hospice in August last year<\/p>\n

However, nursing staff, who are being supported by whistleblowing charity Protect, were unconvinced and branded the investigation a \u2018whitewash.\u2019 They also lodged complaints about Sue Ryder to the Charity Commission, local Labour MP Alex Sobel, West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board and the Care Quality Commission, who carried out an emergency inspection in March.<\/p>\n

The Mail understands the CQC are preparing to publish their report, which staff expect to be critical of hospice management, in the coming days.<\/p>\n

One senior nurse, who has worked in the profession for almost four decades, including 10 years at the hospice, told the Mail: \u2018We feel let down. We\u2019ve had to fight alone to get justice for the patients, their families and the people of Leeds who rely on these services.<\/p>\n

\u2018Wheatfields Hospice has been all but destroyed, the majority of the experienced nurses have resigned and it lurches from one crisis to the next. The CQC have already told us that, if it were not for our tenacity, this deplorable action by Sue Ryder would have gone unnoticed by regulators.<\/p>\n

\u2018It’s really upsetting to watch relatives whose loved ones have died or are being cared for by the hospice running marathons, climbing mountains and raising money for this charity, when the reality is large amounts of their hard-fundraised money is going on lawyers’ fees as they continue to try to discredit and get rid of staff who tried to blow the whistle. We have repeatedly complained to the national leadership of Sue Ryder, who have failed us. The charity is an absolute disgrace.\u2019<\/p>\n

James Sanderson, chief executive of Sue Ryder, told the Mail the \u2018difficult decision\u2019 to close Wheatfields Hospice was made for \u2018patient safety reasons.\u2019<\/p>\n

He claimed that the grievance, although not upheld, highlighted poor communication between senior leaders and nursing staff which has since been improved by the installation of a new management team.<\/p>\n

\u2018The decision (to close) was not taken lightly as we were acutely aware of the impact this would have on our patients, but we were left with no other option,’ he said.<\/p>\n

‘Every healthcare setting must adhere to strict, safe staffing levels and we were unable to meet these due to sickness, vacancies and an investigation into the behaviours and working practices of some employees.<\/p>\n

\u2018We received and responded to two complaints from families whose loved ones had to be moved from the hospice and apologised for the distress.<\/p>\n

\u2018We stand by our decision to temporarily close. We will not compromise on patient safety.\u2019<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board said they were ‘aware’ of last August’s closure, adding that they were working closely with Sue Ryder and were involved in ‘decisions’ about patient care to ensure it was of the highest quality.<\/p>\n

The CQC said they ‘will publish our findings once our standard factual accuracy and quality assurance processes are complete.’<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the Charity Commission confirmed they were investigating.<\/p>\n

\u2018Concerns have been raised with us about the handling of the temporary closure of the Wheatfields Hospice, which is operated by Sue Ryder,\u2019 he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018We can confirm that, in line with our guidance, trustees at Sue Ryder reported the temporary closure to us in a serious incident report.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘We have opened a regulatory compliance case and are currently engaging with Sue Ryder\u2019s trustees to gather more information. This will inform any next steps.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dying patients were bundled into emergency ambulances and moved in their final hours after managers shut down a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[97,102,2960,2375,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-69077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-dailymail","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-healthcare","11":"tag-leeds","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}