Elderly being ‘failed by NHS’

15^th February 2011 - The health service watchdog has published 10 case studies in which older people have been failed by the NHS in England.

In a sharply worded and damning report, Ann Abraham,  the Health Service Ombudsman, said each story illustrated how the healthcare system and individual health workers fail to respond to the over 65s “with sensitivity, compassion and professionalism”.

Tongue ‘like dried leather’

The case studies include those of ‘Mr D’ who was admitted to the Royal Bolton Hospital with stomach cancer.  He was left so dehydrated that he was unable to summon help because “his tongue was like a piece of dried leather”.

In another case, staff at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital turned off ‘Mr C’s’ life support machine, despite requests from his family for a short delay.

‘Unacceptable’: NHS Confederation

The NHS Confederation described the catalogue of treatment failures as “completely unacceptable”, but said that getting things right for every patient represented “an enormous challenge”.

Nine out of the 10 people whose stories are told in the report died while they were being treated or shortly afterwards.

The complaints investigated by the ombudsman were made about NHS Trusts across England and two GP practices.

‘Unnecessary pain, indignity and distress’: Ombudsman

Abrahams said, in her introduction to the report, that the people involved “wanted to be cared for properly and, at the end of their lives, to die peacefully and with dignity”. However, she added, “What they have in common is their experience of suffering unnecessary pain, indignity and distress while in the care of the NHS.”

The ombudsman said the case studies were not exceptional or isolated incidents. Of the 9,000 complaints about the NHS made to her office last year, 18% were about the care of older people. Of those, 226 were accepted for investigation, more than twice as many as for all other age groups put together.

In her stiffly worded report, Abrahams blames the attitude of both the healthcare system and the individuals working in it for a failure to meet even the most basic standards of care. She said the case studies “illuminate the gulf between the principles and values of the NHS Constitution and the felt reality of being an older person in the care of the NHS in England”.

‘An enormous challenge’

Nigel Edwards, acting chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said that the “stories make for distressing reading”. He added in a statement: “Every NHS patient, whatever their age, deserves to be treated with fairness, dignity and respect. To offer anything less is completely unacceptable and we should be absolutely clear about that on behalf of everyone in the NHS.”

Edwards said that elderly patients needed particular care and that the NHS was having to deal with increasing numbers of elderly people because of an ageing population. “We know that we need to get this right for every patient, every time, but making that a reality is an enormous challenge,” Edwards said.

The Patients Association said it received calls for help every day from elderly people who said they receiving poor NHS care. It said they most common complaints were being left hungry and thirsty, inadequate pain relief, being left to soil themselves in bed and being discharged from hospital without the right support in the community.