A report which reveals some NHS hospitals are failing to look after elderly patients properly reflects concerns held by Access Legal from Shoosmiths.

A Care Quality Commission (CQC) investigation found three hospitals - Worcestershire Acute, London's Royal Free, and Ipswich - falling short of legal standards for giving patients enough food and drink and treating them with dignity.

The report raises concerns about three other NHS hospitals.

Access Legal from Shoosmiths says inadequate care of the elderly is a growing problem, and has already hosted a series of conferences to share with care professionals the challenge of finding ways to help prevent some of the appalling treatment - whether physical, mental or financial - suffered by vulnerable and especially older people.

Indeed, its last conference earlier this year took place just weeks after the Health Service Ombudsman published its own damning report, which found that elderly NHS patients had suffered unnecessary pain, neglect and distress.

Partner and national head of medical negligence Richard Follis said in response to the CQC report: "It brings the spotlight to bear on a shameful problem.

"We're seeing deaths and serious injury cases involving the elderly and the otherwise frail, which are entirely preventable.

"Basic failures to feed and hydrate hospital patients brings not only a tragic human cost, but at a practical level unnecessarily uses up NHS acute services, which would otherwise be free for treatment of other patients."

The hospitals cited in the CQC report have been told to improve or face regulatory action.

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