{"id":733749,"date":"2026-08-10T18:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T18:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/733749\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T18:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T18:38:10","slug":"wrexham-man-took-vulnerable-wife-out-of-hospital-over-fears-for-her-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/733749\/","title":{"rendered":"Wrexham man took &#8216;vulnerable&#8217; wife out of hospital over fears for her safety"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A vulnerable woman with a brain tumour and intravenous tube attached to her was allowed to leave hospital without staff noticing, her husband has said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Julia Dutton, 63, who has a pituitary gland tumour, was being treated at Wrexham Maelor Hospital.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Husband Alan Dutton, 60, found her in the hospital car park with the cannula after she asked him to collect her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I spoke to the nurses and I said, &#8216;you can&#8217;t just let a vulnerable patient walk out, she&#8217;s in your care. This is not good enough&#8217;,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Alan Dutton later discharged his wife because he was &#8220;too fearful&#8221; to leave her there unattended.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Betsi Cadwaladr health board said ensuring patients felt &#8220;well cared for &#8220;was its &#8220;primary concern&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The failing health board, which covers all of north Wales, has been<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cn8qzlgllj1o\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> under special measures for the past nine years<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Julia Dutton, from Burton near Wrexham, was being treated for dehydration at the hospital.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The tumour, diagnosed last month, effects her ability to recognise when she needs to eat and drink, leading to several emergency admissions. She also suffers from anxiety. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Alan Dutton said: &#8220;She rang me to say, &#8216;I&#8217;ve had the drip, I am coming home&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I literally jumped in the car, drove to the hospital and I found her standing outside A&amp;E with her bag ready to come home,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But then he saw the cannula and realised his wife had not been discharged.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She was returned to a treatment room and put back on fluids before being moved to an observation unit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Alan Dutton stayed with his wife through the night and following day because he was concerned she was not being properly monitored.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said there were long periods when staff did not check on her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There weren&#8217;t enough nurses, there weren&#8217;t enough healthcare assistants and there weren&#8217;t enough beds,&#8221; he said, adding management issues were to blame, saying they seemed to be in a &#8220;vicious circle&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Alan Dutton decided to &#8220;get her out&#8221; of hospital after his wife had eaten.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A vulnerable woman with a brain tumour and intravenous tube attached to her was allowed to leave hospital&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-733749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733749","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=733749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}