Milton Keynes Hospital apologises after elderly patient's phone mysteriously disappeared from ward

Milton Keynes University Hospital has apologised after an elderly patient’s phone disappeared from a secure ward and was later tracked to the base of a hospital supplier many miles away.

The patient’s son is still fighting for compensation six months later and has spoken out about his frustrating battle.

His 86-year-old dad, who has dementia, was a patient at the hospital between March and July this year.

At the start of his stay, his iPhone and charger suddenly vanished from his bedside and his son Adam Boyd immediately tracked the device using the ‘find my phone’ feature on his own device.

“At first it showed it was in a secure location at the hospital. Then the next day it moved to a third party supplier for the hospital,” said Adam.

His dad was on a secure ward that he was not allowed out of, so the obvious explanation was that the phone was taken by the third party, which is based in another part of the UK, he claims.

Adam complained to hospital bosses and also PALS, the Patient Advice and Liaison Service, providing screenshots as proof of the phone’s location. But after multiple phone calls and emails over the past six months, the situation is nowhere near resolved.

"We logged a claim and didn't even ask for a full price re-imbursement, only for him to have the oldest available device that Apple were selling,” he said.

"Since March, we feel we have been ignored and had false promises and false information given to us… The hospital claimed that it's my dad's fault and they took a statement from him at the time (back in March) - when his family were not present.

"He has dementia, so why they are now saying this, is beyond us.

"It's been a long, stressful process, which as family, we really could have done without. We feel my father has done nothing wrong and has been let down by the hospital.”

Adam was so frustrated that he turned up at the hospital on one occasion and refused to leave until the Head of Security agreed to meet him.

During this meeting, the security boss said he should have logged the matter with Thames Valley Police.

"I never expected back in March that it would have got to the stage of getting police involved,” he said.

“When I did, the police agreed it does not look good from a hospital point of view - but sadly any CCTV footage would no longer be present.”

A spokesperson for Milton Keynes University Hospital told the Citizen this week: “We are very sorry this has been such a difficult and confusing process.”

They added: “ Although this has been investigated internally and been to a panel for review around reimbursement (as is the case for all claims relating to missing property), the Trust recognises that this has clearly not been well communicated to Mr Boyd or his family.

"We will undertake a review to understand what has happened and will write to Mr Boyd to set out what will happen next in order that we can get this matter resolved.”