Dave Watson, 73, died in February after receiving what his family claim was poor care at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.
A Scots family have said they were heartbroken after being ‘robbed’ of time with their dad. Dave Watson, 73, died last month just two months after being admitted to hospital following a fall caused by a seizure.
Dave’s family have claimed that he was ‘ignored’ and ‘failed’ after he was forced to wait hours for an ambulance and 13 hours in a corridor at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh with broken ribs and a punctured lung on December 2, 2025.
Wife Elisabeth, a nurse with 43 years experience in the NHS, felt his care before his death on February 7 was not up to scratch following a litany of failures.
NHS Lothian have said that the family’s concerns are “being taken seriously” but can’t comment further while an investigation into their complaints is ongoing.
Speaking to our sister title Edinburgh Live, Elisabeth said: “I was there with Dave in A&E for hours and left to go and get him a bag. While I was at home I received a call to say Dave had fallen off the trolley in the corridor trying to go to the toilet – he was on his own for maybe an hour at most.
“No one seemed to be looking after him. He had crawled all the way down his bed and managed to fall out of the end without anyone noticing. He was not being monitored and I want to know: did he have a buzzer? Did he shout or ask for help?
“They were worried he had broken his hip so he was sent to get a CT scan. His results came back confirming his broken ribs, so we knew he just needed time and rehabilitation to heal.
“But the hospital seemed like a chaotic mess. I had to ask a friend who worked at the hospital to come and give Dave his medication on time as I had received no assurances from staff.”
In 2020, Edinburgh University physics graduate and music composer Dave, from the Comiston area of Edinburgh, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s and later developed Alzheimer’s. Despite that, he was able to live a relatively independent life supported by wife Elisabeth, daughters Amy and Catriona and son Tom.
After his wait at A&E, Dave was moved to the hospital‘s major trauma ward where his care was said to be excellent. So much so that he was described as ‘a new man’ going into the weekend.
Daughter Amy travelled to Disneyland Paris with her kids and husband believing her dad would be back home by the time she returned. But this was not the case.
Amy said: “I was so confident we would see him at home when I got back. He spent two days in major trauma but was then sent to surgical under the care of a cardiothoracic surgeon despite requiring no surgery or suffering from heart-related issues. Initially, dad had a lot of attention but it went downhill as the ward became busier.”
However, Dave developed sepsis from an intravenous cannula that had been left in for over 72 hours according to his family. Later that day, they were told he was unlikely to survive the night, forcing Catriona, a nurse in London, to fly home.
Amy said: “It was horrendous, I sat with my dad on our own for six hours while he was having seizures and hallucinating. They had no idea what to do.
“It took them hours to discover he had sepsis and then we were told he was not going to pull through. We had prepared ourselves to say goodbye.
“But by the next day, he had bounced back and survived. Catriona kept saying he was in the wrong ward. We knew he was not in the right place. But I think they took advantage of the fact we were there all the time as a family caring for him.”
To recover, he needed physical rehabilitation and that he was awaiting a transfer to Ellens Glen community hospital. However, Elisabeth believes he was side-lined as he was seen as a bed blocker by NHS Lothian.
She said: “All I kept hearing is ‘he is for rehab.’ I knew that rehab had to start right away but it never happened.
“It was imperative for his recovery to have physiotherapy and occupational therapy everyday and I worry this did not happen because he was not boarded in the right place. He was at a huge disadvantage. He was wasting away.”
Both Elisabeth and Amy describe a decline in Dave’s condition after initially rallying. They believe this was down to two factors: his medication not being administered properly and a lack of physiotherapy.
Amy said: “He was going stir crazy. During his time in hospital I witnessed first hand his medication not being given on time or at all.
“It is absolutely vital that someone with Parkinson’s is given their medication on the dot. When mum got a call from staff at the Royal to say they had a restraining order in place as he had bit a member of staff, we knew something was wrong.
“He had never displayed this kind of behaviour in his life, he must have been so scared. We would get calls through the night saying he was distressed.
“This is when we discovered his long standing 8pm Parkinson’s medication was regularly not being administered. I witnessed first hand his medication not being given on time or at all.
“We were regularly called in to help him use the toilet. They were having him go to his toilet on his back, not even offering him a commode. The level of care was shocking.”
Amy claims the lack of physiotherapy meant Dave was often hoisted up by nursing staff using their man power but the moment his blood pressure dropped, they abandoned treatment.
She decided to move her dad to his room chair to encourage recovery. After six weeks, Amy and her husband decided to get him up for a walk which left the nurses at the bay ‘freaking out.’
Amy said: “My dad was seven stone, so we knew we could support him. That evening, staff observed him walking out of the ward to the toilet by himself. This observation confirmed he never lost the capacity to walk; he was just sidelined and ignored.
“I felt like the hospital was constantly passing the buck. No one was taking responsibility.
“Low blood pressure is a well-recognised and long-standing feature of Parkinson’s disease. Nevertheless, physiotherapy sessions were repeatedly abandoned due to drops in blood pressure. They just left him in his bed making no effort.”
Elisabeth was horrified when she discovered Dave in early January 2026, alone on a mattress on the floor in the foetal position hallucinating. She claims a staff nurse was sitting outside the room on a computer watching him.
She said: “Enough was enough. I told them to get him on the chair and I stormed in and told them they have to get Dave out of here now.
“He should have been moved to Ellens Glen immediately but by the time he got there in the middle of January, it was too late. He needed intense care but was not given it, he would have been better off at home.”
Having decades of experience working as a nurse within the NHS, Elisabeth believes Dave’s treatment was emblematic of the crisis impacting NHS Scotland – long waiting times and not enough beds for reablement across the Lothians.
Dave was moved into Ellens Glen and sadly passed away on February 3. This was despite the family being assured throughout December and January that he was not at the stage of ‘end of life care.’
Amy said: “The damage was done by the time we went to Ellens Glen. The minute he rallied in hospital he had to be moved there.
“The fact he deteriorated so severely away from us showed how good a job we were doing caring for him at home. I genuinely believe he would have died in the Royal if we had not been there intervening and caring for him. We were taken advantage of, and he was failed.”
Elisabeth believes the NHS is ‘finished.’ Having spent four decades working in the sector, she describes an environment riddled with bed blockage and a lack of rehabilitative care.
She said: “Dave was failed by the system. If he had been given physio right away then we could have had longer with him.
“He is one of thousands who are being failed and dying in hospitals like the Royal. We have a capacity issue in Edinburgh.
“I’m appalled. I do feel that looking back and having worked with a lot of people, there is massive fragmentation.
“Senior members of NHS Scotland have no awareness of what is happening on the ground. The NHS is just firefighting now, it is panic management. The human level has gone.”
The family have contacted various senior figures within NHS Scotland as well as cabinet ministers but say they feel ‘fobbed off and ignored.’ They currently have a stage two complaint being investigated by NHS Lothian.
Tracey Gillies, Medical Director for NHS Lothian, said: “We extend our sincere condolences to Mr Watson’s family and want to assure them that their concerns are being taken seriously. As we are currently investigating a formal complaint regarding his care, we are unable to comment further at this time.”
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