The unsolved murder on a hospital ward that shames the NHS

Valerie Kneale was chatting away, sitting upright in her hospital bed, when her family left her behind on the ward.

Hours before, the 75-year-old grandmother had been admitted to Blackpool Victoria Hospital in Lancashire in November 2018 after suffering a stroke while eating her dinner.

But she appeared to have made a remarkable recovery. Her husband and two children were assured by hospital staff that they could go home and she would be looked after overnight.

The next morning, Mrs Kneale’s family returned to discover that she had slipped into a coma. She died three days later.

The post-mortem examination revealed that she had been sexually assaulted while on the ward, where entry was controlled by key card, with such force that it had caused severe, fatal blood loss.

Lancashire Constabulary immediately started a murder investigation but seven years on, the force has stopped searching for who was responsible for attacking Mrs Kneale.

Her death – and the failure to find a culprit – is but one tragedy in a hospital that appears to be out of control.

A weeks-long Telegraph investigation has uncovered a litany of failures at Blackpool Victoria:

• Eight other deaths on the stroke ward in 2018 are being investigated,
• “Corrupt” nurses were jailed for drugging patients to keep them compliant,
• Powerful medicines went missing,
• A heart surgeon was imprisoned for groping the breasts and bottoms of female colleagues,
• Doctors shared sexist jokes in WhatsApp groups called “cardiac sluts” and “work slags”.

With no one held accountable for the deaths and a police investigation into corporate failings at the stroke unit still ongoing after two years, the families of several victims told The Telegraph that only a public inquiry could answer their questions.

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Source: The Telegraph, 6 November 2025