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SENIOR CITIZEN CARE IN UK
HOSPITALS |
Aged patients ill-treated in UK
hospitals
1 October, 2007
Elderly patients are being
ill-treated in hospitals across the
United Kingdom.
A study by the Healthcare Commission
has revealed the shocking fact that
hundreds of senior citizens are being
treated without dignity or adequate
privacy in wards across the United
Kingdom.
One patient described the treatment of
elderly people in hospitals as
amounting to “mental cruelty.”
The report lists a series of failings
showing that elderly patients are
subjected to abuse and violence, as
well as neglect. They are left in
soiled clothes or forced to use
lavatories or bedpans in front of
other people.
Some are given food they are allergic
to or can choke on, which has led to
1,200 “safety incidents” over a year.
In all, 18 of the 23 hospital trusts
studied by the health services
watchdog were found to be failing to
care properly for the elderly.
The Healthcare Commission has called
for urgent improvements to protect
elderly people being treated in
“inhumane and degrading” ways, and
warned
hospitals that it will carry out
unannounced spot checks.
The Commission wants patients,
relatives, and caregivers to “blow the
whistle on hospitals where the elderly
and vulnerable are mistreated.”
The Healthcare Commission’s
commission's report, titled Caring for
Dignity, has found:
- Only 5
hospital trusts out of 23 met all of
its standards on dignity in care.
- 23% of
elderly patients said they had to
share a room or bay with someone of
the opposite sex.
- Only 16%
said they had all the help they
needed to eat.
- 25% of
recorded patient safety incidents
involving food and drink either
caused patients harm or put them at
risk.
94% of elderly patients claimed
that they were never asked their views
of their care while in hospital.
Anna Walker, chief executive of the
Healthcare Commission, said: “There is
a critical challenge to ensure that
all older people are treated with
dignity all of the time. Trusts must
step up efforts to achieve this.
Trusts should also know that, where
there is evidence that the right care
is not being provided consistently, we
will use all our powers of assessment
and inspection. Patients and the
public do not want us to let this
issue go and we have no intention of
doing so.”
Paul Cann, director of policy at Help
the Aged, lamented that it was
“intolerable” that only 5 of the 23
trusts complied with all the
standards. “Older people are human
beings – not objects or numbers,” he
observed. “It is nearly 10 years since
we exposed the shortcomings in
hospital care and dignity for older
people, yet we are still hearing of
shocking abuses.”
According to Gordon Lishman,
director-general of Age Concern, “the
dignity of older patients in hospital
has been a low priority for far too
long. We want
the National Health Service (NHS)
boards to make dignity a top priority,
so hospitals provide services that
board members themselves would be
prepared to receive.”
The Healthcare Commission found that
many trusts “struggled” to provide
single-sex wards because of pressure
on beds. Some patients were put in
mixed wards for the convenience of
staff, it was claimed.
The hospitals which were sent warning
letters are: West Dorset General; West
Hertfordshire; Queen Elizabeth,
south-east London; Luton and Dunstable;
Oxford Radcliffe; The Princess
Alexandra, Essex; Hull and East
Yorkshire and Barts and The London.
The Healthcare Commission has told
these hospitals to take “major, urgent
steps” and that their progress will be
reviewed in six months.
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