THE daughter of an Alton man who died in hospital while waiting to come home is deeply disappointed with a system that she feels failed her father in his final hour of need.

Dudley Ayling, 81, died on September 13, following a two-year battle with lung cancer.

Daughter Sarah Fry, a registered nurse and Marie Curie trained, had flown in from Australia to be with her dad, a keen gardener, whose dying wish was to return home so that he could see his garden and put away his wheelbarrow, before ending his days in comfort with the people he loved.

But that was not to be – and it was down to a critical shortage of home carers.

According to Sarah, while the family had a fast-track support package in place to enable Dudley to be cared for at home – the equipment had been delivered, including a bed and oxygen tank, and his GP was on board – the process could not go ahead because “there were not enough community carers or nurses to look after him”.

Prepared to go privately and pick up the cost, there were no local carers available to help the family. Instead, her dad, who had been admitted to North Hampshire Hospital as an emergency case for four weeks and told there was nothing more to be done, spent his final days blocking a bed, which could have been used by another patient. He died “behind a curtain in a rehab unit” when Sarah believes he could, with not too much help, have returned home.

She was devastated, saying: “I feel personally responsible that I have let him down by not fulfilling his wishes. He wanted to see his garden one more time.”

While she was under pressure to return home to her family in Perth, she said: “We only needed one carer morning and night, mum could have managed everything else.”

And she added: “More funding must be put into providing community care and palliative care where and when it is needed. We can’t be the only family in this tragic situation.”

On a professional and personal level, Sarah believes that with an ageing population, “something has to be done in the UK to make the job of caring a more attractive proposition”.

Sarah’s wish to highlight the impact on local families of the crisis in the caring profession coincides with national coverage over poor pay in the care sector and figures that show a rapid rise in the number of people unable to leave hospital due to problems with providing care at home.

While Hampshire Hospital NHS Foundation Trust was unable to comment on individual patients, a spokesman confirmed that it was usual in these situations for the Trust to work closely with its partners in adult social services at Hampshire County Council, who are responsible for care packages, “to help people to go home when its best for them to be at home”.

A county council spokesman said: “We were very saddened to hear about the difficulties faced by this family in relation to accessing suitable care at home support in the Alton area, and we would like to pass on our sincere condolences for the family’s loss.

“We are very aware of the difficulties in recruiting carers, not just in Alton but across the entire county, and indeed nationally. We are currently working with a number of care companies across Hampshire who we commission to deliver care at home support on our behalf to try to tackle the shortage of care workers. This includes ensuring the companies are paying their staff competitive rates of pay, that they are investing in the training and development of their staff, and that staff are paid for the time spent travelling to and from clients – all of which are crucial in an industry that is often characterised by low pay and poor working conditions.

“This work is currently being supported by a marketing campaign to attract new workers into the industry. Early indications are that this activity is proving successful and we are seeing more people enquiring about a career in the care industry.”

To find out more about a career in care, visit hants.gov.uk/changelives.