Southend Hospital has celebrated the work of a team responsible for schemes that 'respect' patients. Officials held a special event for the hospital's Dignity and Respect Action Group in the main outpatients department on Thursday. Residents were given the chance to suggest ideas for the future while a team from Anglia Ruskin University was on hand to give details of its study module on dignity and respect.

Roz Blackboro, organiser and chair of the Dignity and Respect Action Group, said: "Everyone in the hospital - staff, patients and visitors - has the right to be treated with dignity and respect and everyone has a role to play. We are each individuals but we all need to be given choice, control, a sense of purpose and stimulating activities in our daily lives."