Shaking with rage, can't sleep, NHS treatment of elderly

The bed sore situation is appalling. Care has gone right downhill since I started in the NHS 45 years ago as a nurse.
I'm a podiatrist now and I'd say around one third of the people I see are horrendous heel pressure sores on people who have been in hospital.. it's appalling and no amount of reporting changes anything.
I've been left disabled due to hospital and GP negligence and this should never have happened.

I agree with all that. There also needs to be more whistle blowing and internal reporting systems so staff can report things. If you read consultant Peter Duffy's "Whistle in the wind" book, it's very illuminating as to the attitude of management when reports of lazy/incompetent staff are made, even by a highly experienced/respected consultant. Basically he was the one hounded out! That tells you all you need to know about the current NHS!

I would also get some disipline back into the wards.

People bringng in stinking take aways and treating the visit to the ward as a day out for the whole family. One chap who had come in to visit his partners relative asked me (god knows why) if he could get a shower as he had just come from work and another who had brough her kids in after school then proceeded to allow them to queue up for their dinner. The kitchen lady told them they werent entitled to the patients food and women pushed the issue back to the staff by saying they were hungrey and what was she meant to give them!

Mum was bothered by a young child who had been brought in and was allowed by her large family to wander around the ward. Mum wasnt in a great state but it didnt stop this brat pulling the curtain back and wanting to know what was going on and why Mum was hiding from them. Parent did nothing..in the end I had to go over and tell them Mum was in a bad way and didnt feel like conversing with anyone. The Mum looked at me like I was mad and grudgingly called her child back.

As an observer you see all sorts.

I disagree with you. One person doesnt make a difference at all.

The problems I have seen are down to poor management, poor supervision, poor training, poor attitude.

There is good practice but there is also poor practice. As in most organisations unfortunately the poor practitioners tend to cluster together so you will end up with a good ward or a bad ward.

How individuals can help to improve things is by pointing out sub-standard care.

The NHS needs to open itself up to feedback both from service users and also from service providers. This should be a routine part of service provision. What's gone well, what went badly. Too often poor practice is not recognised or addressed until there has been a catastrophe.

I m out of it now in that both parents have now passed.

However there is definitely an issue with some people working on these front line roles who dont have a clear grasp of English or have such a strong accent its impossible to follow what they are saying. Last time Mum was in hospital there were two nurses cleaning up Mum and conversing in their native language. Mum was asking them what they were doing to her (in a calm voice - she just wanted to know!) and they completely ignored her. They didnt realise I had just come in.

I have had messages left for me giving updates on parent where I cannot follow the message being left and of course you can never just call back. I was working full time but always knew if a unrecognised number came up I HAD to answer it even though it was sometimes a scam call because I knew I wouldnt be able to call them back.

And it certainly isnt racist to call this out. We need to understand what is happening to our beloved relative.

It isnt funding. I have worked with the NHS as a supplier and most of the trusts I worked with over the years couldnt manage their way out of a paperwork. The endless meetings about very little and the cottage industries all over the place to ensure that people keep their jobs.

I'm so sorry OP, unfortunately I'm not a bit surprised. Been there, done that with MIL. My 90 year old DF was unwell on Christmas Day, all he had was an upset tummy but his GP wanted him to go to A&E. I had to beg him not to go. Luckily an ambulance arrived and the paramedics checked him over and did an ECG and all was well so he didn't go. I firmly believe that if he had gone in he would never have come out alive.

I shudder to think how elderly people with no relatives are treated.

A classic Mumsnet response 🙄

You can't treat pressure ulcers with cream; she needs special dressings. I hope the GP can help x

I take it you're a nurse yourself?

All of you who are so disgusted with the NHS, why don't you all train as doctors and nurses and be the change you wish to see? Or become hospital volunteers or HCAs. Even one person can make a difference. Or is it easier to moan about "third world" (rather a derogatory term but never mind, we're British, right?) standards?

I'm rushing to get somewhere, so haven't read the full thread, but has she been checked for a UTI?

@ElaineBurdock
My dad had Parkinson's, but was still doing okay. A few months before he'd fallen in the garden, in between a fence and a rock wall and my mum couldn't help him up because he was stuck. Mum told me a guy with the ambulance crew, who was talking to someone on his phone at the time, asked her if they had more than 24,000 pounds in the bank. WTH? She was indignant and said of course they did!

They were probably trying to see if he would be self funding if he needed to go into residential care.

I agree. Animals would have got better care than my 83 year old MIL when she was blue lighted to A&E and abandoned for 48 hours with no "care" at all. The "caring profession" my arse!

Absolutely this. The woman is nearly 90. Of course a fall and a hospital stay is going to affect her in a negative way. They are right not to let her home if she doesn’t have the proper care in place.

It might be worth joining the elderly parents group on here op.

They are right not to let her out with adequate support surely? She was in hospital for a reason her health had deteriorated, and often the stress and disorientation of actually being in hospital exacerbates that determination. That isn't the fault of the NHS

It's unrealistic to demand that the NHS be able to provide perfect care to every old patient, particularly in a country with so many people living into their 80s and 90s.

When my friend was in hospital, she was the only one in her ward not extremely elderly. She, post-operative, wound up providing a lot of these women's care.

Not good enough. Of course we should expect that standards of nursing care are met. Honestly, expectations on so low they're in the earth's core at this point.

@WearyAuldWumman I’m sorry you had such an awful experience with your husband. The level of care is just dreadful in some instances.

The sad reality is, very old people are extremely vulnerable and at extra high risk when anything traumatic happens to them. They need, at that point, every possible resource to be mobilised around them, and this includes family. It's unrealistic to demand that the NHS be able to provide perfect care to every old patient, particularly in a country with so many people living into their 80s and 90s.
It may take a village to raise a child, but it also takes one to support an elderly person in their last years of life.
I do wonder what OP's uncle's role in this situation has been; he certainly doesn't sound very capable or helpful.

Something similar happened to my mum, but she actually had a chest infection.

She was finally allowed to eat and drink after about 6 days without sustenance. No one had discussed it with me - I was actually rebuked by a nurse for giving her water, which was how I found out.

I don't know how she survived, but of course she lost a great deal of weight in the time and you can imagine the overall effect. I was going in and taking in ice cream to feed her.

I can't remember all the details 10 yrs later, but it was a shitshow. I'd had to point out that she was coughing up mucus, a sample was sent to the lab, but there was a change of doctor and antibiotics weren't administered straight away.

Mum had a diagnosis of mixed dementia, but was only in the early stages - the hospital seemed to take it upon themselves to decide that she was end stage.

I got advice from the Alzheimer's Society and created merry hell.

Just about everything went wrong. I'd been with Mum all day when she was admitted, had explained that I had POA - told them that I didn't want them slapping on a DNR. (Bizarre thing to say? Yes...but that's exactly what they did with Dad 4 yrs previously. I found out the day after he died. I had POA and hadn't been informed.)

Had to go home at 9 o'clock at night, in the end, to look after DH. Told the nurse I'd bring in the POA in the morning.

Next morning, got to the ward. Spoke to the nurse on duty. Handed over the POA. She looked like she'd seen a ghost.

"You need to see this."

A DNR. Next of kin? Victoria Hospital A&E.

At best - utter incompetence and lack of communication.