Outraged patients at Watford General have accused hospital staff of negligence of the highest degree after a lingering "smell of death" led to the discovery of old bloodied swabs stuffed in a bedside cabinet.

And in a second incident within a month, a dad lifted the mattress of the bed his young daughter was lying on to find a build up of congealed blood from a previous patient.

Anna Lindley was rushed to the hospital and admitted to the acute admissions unit (AAU) on September 6.

Doctors struggled to normalise her temperature and placed her in an isolation room in the unit.

But the 50-year-old, who lives in Berkhamsted, said she was immediately overpowered with the "smell of death" in the room."

She said: "From the moment I got there I could smell death. I told everyone.

"I was hallucinating, my temperature was coming up and down and all the time I kept smelling it."

After three days nurses discovered a number of soiled swabs in Mrs Lindley’s bedside cabinet.

She said: "There was a cabinet next to me. The nurses pulled out from the back - three days and three nights after I had been there - in isolation conditions - this huge mess of three swabs covered in excrement and blood.

"It was dripping.

"When I think of the spores coming off that. My daughter was 40 weeks pregnant. What was I breathing in for 24 hours a day.

"The whole thing has been the most traumatic 10 days."

In another incident of uncleanliness, Jason Browring found a quantity of dried blood underneath the mattress his daughter was lying on.

He said he had complained directly to the hospital chief executive Samantha Jones about the oversight.

West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust, in charge of Watford General, has apologised for the "totally unacceptable" standards of cleaning.

Tracey Carter, chief nurse, said: "We aim to provide the highest possible standards of hygiene and cleanliness in our hospitals and we are extremely disappointed when we fail to do so, as we clearly did on these two occasions.  

"Every incident of this nature is recorded, investigated and a plan agreed to help prevent it happening again.

"We have met with Mr Browring and apologised for the condition of the trolley used to transport his daughter while an inpatient on our children’s ward. The trolley had not been cleaned properly, which is totally unacceptable. Immediate actions were taken and these were explained to Mr Browring.

"We are currently in the process of investigating Ms Lindley’s complaint and have offered to meet with her to discuss her concerns. We have also apologised for the distress that this has caused her.

"We have already instigated a number of changes to improve our cleaning standards, including improved monitoring of our cleaning teams and regular spot checks to ensure our wards and clinics are cleaned to the appropriate standards.  We are also empowering our nursing staff to take greater responsibility for overseeing the cleanliness of their areas."