Just an average day in the National Health in Britain. But we won't get to this point for at least twenty years.

. . . I heard Rita Cronin on the Today programme. Her son, Kane Gorny, who suffered from multiple medical problems, had a hip replaced in St George’s Hospital, Tooting. One of his perennial problems was dehydration, and he repeatedly asked the nurses for water. None brought him any, so he took the desperate step of dialling 999 from his hospital bed. When the police arrived, the hospital staff told them that Mr Gorny was in a confused state, so they went away. Still no nurses would give him water. He lashed out at them angrily, so they had him surrounded by security guards . . . and sedated, still without water.

Mr Gorny died in that hospital from what the coroner described as “dehydration contributed to by neglect”. While his parents were discussing his death with the matron in her office, Miss Cronin recalled, a nurse stuck her head round the door and asked, “Shall I bag him up now?”

From a column in The Telegraph by Charles Moore.