The way some elderly people are spoken to in hospital

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I was visiting an elderly relative in hospital last week. She's a retired headmistress, a top ranking bridge player, and an extremely capable person. Yet everytime a young staff member came near her they spoke to her as if she was about six years old:

"How are we today Joan"?
"Now, I think we should try and walk a bit today Joan"?

etc etc, all in a loud, patronising voice.

I've seen this with my own parents as well. It's undignified and demeaning, especially to a generation (in their eighties) who wouldn't be used to being addressed by their first name by strangers.

AIBU to find it annoying the way all elderly people seem to be treated as if they're in their dotage by some young hospital staff?

@NannyOgg highly skilled healthcare professionals aren't his bloody "staff" that's why.

Nursing notes are pretty much all on computer now.
This is why it's harder to get the 'known as' and 'occupation' information especially when you are working under pressure and trying to deliver safe, appropriate and timely care. The board on the wall above the bed helps, but we can only update the name section when people tell us we have it wrong. The vast majority of patients do not mind going by their legal name rather than their preferred (often unpredictable) other alias. If they don't express that preference on admission, the following 20 staff are not going to ask the same question as patients hate to answer the same question over and over again. I have come across a knight and an archbishop who both insisted on first names, as it helped them feel a closer bond with the medical staff.
And no, I did not talk down to either of them or shout at them. Both were over 65 with full cognitive and hearing function. They got the same (high!) respect and politeness as anyone else I interact with.

We always ask people what they want to be called and then call them by that name. Occasionally I'll slip up and call someone by their actual name instead of e.g. their middle name which they go by, but that's because it's the name I read on all their notes, meds etc and I'm BUSY and not perfect.

When it comes to the level of formality, you get to know the patients who want you to laugh and joke and mess about with them to help them feel ok about you cleaning up their faecal incontinence, and those who prefer more of a distance. I can't always know that if I've only just met them, and I will always try to help someone feel as ok as possible when delivering personal care.

If someone gets your name wrong, politely correct them, and ask them to write the preferred name in the notes. Don't sit there stewing and cursing the NHS when there's a fairly simple solution. If someone is patronising, please feedback to the ward manager and do try not to tar us all with the same brush. NHS staff are routinely sworn at, and attacked by patients but we won't assume you'll do that just because you're one.

Thankfully I have, mainly, wonderful patients who I've built up a
great relationships with, relationships built on mutual respect. Have nursed a few who treat me like "staff" and speak to me like I'm barely worth their time, of course, but most see that I'm a) trying to help them b) a highly trained and educated professional and c) a human being.

To the person who said their relationship with nurses is a professional one - I'm an oncology nurse. I care for patients and their families for years, from diagnosis, throughout their treatment, sometimes to that glorious moment where they get to ring the bell signalling the end to their chemo, where everyone on the ward stops and cheers, and sometimes I nurse them to the end of their lives. I cry with them, laugh with them, coo over their family photos with them, it's a lovely relationship and one that I feel privileged to be a part of. Your way sounds very lonely.

Just to offer a slightly different perspective. I don’t know whether it’s just the elderly, or the dynamic of hcp/the hospital in charge/position of power and patient (of any age) dependent/reliant/expected to do as they are told.

For example after my very bad birth a midwife came over and as I wasn’t mobilising well myself asked my family to leave and announced that she would be giving me a bed bath.
I remember my mum looking furious, not because I was getting care, but the way it was just decided for me and announced in such an undignified manner. At nearly 30 I’m quite capable of deciding whether I want assistance to wash, and it just generally could have been done more politely and respectfully.

Or then again maybe it is just elderly and maternity where patients are patronised.

If you are a 40odd year old male, you may be treat with a bit more respect.
I don’t have enough experience of other areas to comment.

It's not 5he first name that's infantilising, it's the "how are we doing..."

Talk to someone, instead of at them, and you become much less patronising.

Also, not yet 50 but my hearing is going. You don't need to shout, but please just face me and not mumble. (still working on this with dh)

Tomboy no complaint at all about the style of nursing you talk about, all power to you, but that is based on a relationship you build over time I think most on here are talking about when the contact is more fleeting.

ohyesiam still in the nursing notes in Scotland anyway

@Roobub

His 'bloody staff' were also highly skilled people and he preferred that things were formal. That was the point I was making, not that the HCP were his 'staff'.
Just because he was old and very ill it didn't mean that people many years younger should start using his first name. That's not what he was used to and it's not what he wanted.

Yes an elderly relative who died a few months ago was continuously referred wrongly in hospital to by a first name that he had never been known by in his 92 years. He had always been called his middle name. In the end one of us brought in a marker and wrote above his bed that he is known by Y, before it changed - in spite of talking to them many times about this.

The worst I have seen very recently though was when admitted at the weekend to hospital and there was a profoundly deaf woman admitted to the same room as me. Staff kept coming in and talking to her, and I would explain she is profoundly deaf. They ALWAYS responded by speaking louder and seemed to take her non answers as a sign of confusion . It wasn't until Monday afternoon when they finally got a signer for her, that she was spoken to like the intelligent adult she was. I honestly thought things had moved on and was shocked at how all the staff treated her. This was not the odd one person.

Also can't stand when HCP are doing something as a pair to you and chat to each other about general things - not work. Makes you feel like a lump of meat rather than an actual person.

@abacucat that's awful. I care for someone with severe dementia who is profoundly deaf. I couldn't find a piece of paper last time so I ended up with half a story written up my arm as she wanted to write on me to reply. She did find it very entertaining though

It's not the name thing, it's the 'Now, how are we today?" in nursery school teacher's voice which is so horribly patronising. I'm a teacher and I even hate listening to people talk to children in that voice, never mind adults! I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would address another person as 'we' rather than 'you'. It's twee and stupid.

You sound like a great carer. And yes it was awful. She seemed pretty frightened for the whole of the weekend as well as no one was telling her what was actually happening. They could have written it down, instead they just used simple language and talked loudly. I kept telling them she couldn't hear, but they pretty much ignored me. Poor woman.

My sister spent a lot of time in hospitals and eventually a care home as her health deteriorated because of brain tumours. She died earlier this year at 48. One of the issues she had was poor cognitive ability that meant she took a while to process things. She did eventually get it though.

Generally care and nursing staff were respectful, but there were some who did do that awful patronising tone. DSis often told me she hated how everyone treated her like an idiot. Her care manager, who I spoke to at least weekly, would always call her "mum" "We'll try to get mum moved somewhere more suitable" "As long as mum is comfortable that's what matters." Every time I had to say, "She's not my mum, she's my younger sister" . It's like her deteriorating mental and physical health put her on that bottom shelf.

I'm 60 and recently had to spend a night in hospital following an a&e admission. By this point I was feeling fine and a bit of a fraud for being there, but they wanted to run more tests.

I was lucky to be in a side room. But it was awful. Some staff being totally patronising, people wandering in without a word - handing me medication to take without telling me what it was or for (and there are no charts in the rooms any more or I would have looked). At one point two workmen wandered in to do repairs. Not a word to me - in spite of the hospital having a widely publicised policy of staff introducing themselves. Only one did the work, I assume the other one was there as some sort of chaperone but I did feel that two unannounced men in a side room with a female who was possibly feeling vulnerable was not on and I flagged it on the "how did we do" questionnaire.

*@FuzzyCustard really don't think the telephone thing is worth getting worked up about.

Most like they are trying to save some much needed money by not paying call canter workers for an out of hours service.

As to asking people which service they'd prefer... Talk about making unnecessary work for people!*

In which case, do away with the call centre completely and have everyone on the automated system. It's the assumption of age-related inability I object to.