To wonder how many elderly people in hospital die of neglect?

[Gone2far]

My poor elderly dad is in hospital. Whenever we visit, we're sorting out something. This morning, nobody had made sure he'd taken his medication and, when I pointed it out, they whisked it away. But then told my mother that he had had it.
The hospital is enormous, and you never seem to see the same member of staff twice.
I think it would be very easy for an elderly patient, who didn't have family or friends coming in, to be forgotten, apart from the absolute minimum of care.
Anyway,perhaps i'm feeling this because i'm worrying about my dad. But I know we can't be there all the time and feel helpless

Actually alsohuman some things aren't available without an NHS gateway. A&E, GP, I had two babies on the NHS, health visiting is universal (universally useless ime). It doesn't equate to £200k pa btw over a working life approaching 40 years. £100k plus yes.

If one would always opt for private, and I mostly do, surely there should be a tax rebate. Sadly there isn't.

However, bearing in mind what dh and I have contributed collectively I don't think anyone should be on the receiving end of rubbish care.

Anyway you do seem to have a bit of an issue with views that differ from your own.

Pot kettle, I think. Your constant disparagement of the NHS and wealth boasts are pretty tedious.

One can have an informed debate or be personal. Clearly you prefer the latter.

What is your issue exactly? That I think the NHS could be run more professionally and better for the benefit of all or that I have choices, born of v hard work.

A lot of people work very hard, including the vast majority of the nurses you're so keen to criticise. There's a shortage of 40,000 nurses in the NHS and, now there are no longer bursarIes, it's going to get worse.

Some parts of the NHS definitely need improvement, the stories on this thread about what old people suffer are heartbreaking. But other parts of it are fine and I do have an issue with endless carping from someone who must be in the wealthiest 1% of the population. There are private GPs, the only part of the NHS someone who can afford private care needs to engage with is A&E and the skills and dedication of the people who work there are faultless.

I was a part time hostess (drinks and food trolley) when I was sixteen - I worked after school for a couple of hours three times a week.

I did my best to make sure the, mainly elderly, patients on my wards had access to appropriate food and drink, but I wasn't permitted to actually feed people (and wouldn't have had time and hadn't been trained). I do remember asking the nurses/HCAs to help particular patients who weren't capable of feeding themselves, but very often I'd be told they were too busy or "so and so doesn't want to eat". At the end of my shift I had to clear the trays away whether or not the food had been eaten.

It was really upsetting sometimes, and at sixteen I wasn't confident enough to kick up more of a fuss. I used to rush through my round and then go around chatting to the patients and encouraging them to drink - sometimes all it needed was for a cup to be put into a patient's hand and they'd accept it.

That was fifteen years ago and I doubt things have got better since.

I think that they are aware of the issues existing to some extent - we had a recent experience of a very elderly but mentally sharp family member who deliberately refused food to hasten death (but took drink and pain relief) after a set of injuries, and once it became obvious that she was not eating/losing weight they could not transfer her out of the ward fast enough - I presume the optics on 'immobile 90+ starves to death in hospital' are not a good look. They were also very keen to write up dementia (as this can involve not eating) despite it being quite the opposite, which impacted other care.

Faultless A&E eh. Are there unicorns where you live also. Our local A&E has been CQC'd three times since 2016. They go back and back principally to see if it meets the recommendations.

I oppose the removal of the nursing bursary but I do think those who receive it should be required to work for the NHS for a period three times the length of their training.

When I receive poor NHS services I always complain, I've intervened before when I have seen a young person being yelled at by nhs staff. I have have choices and those choices make doing something about things that are wrong easier. Many people are made more vulnerable due to having no choices. I see no reason why anyone should receive poor clinical or pastoral care. What I have difficulties with are giving tbe NHS more money to spend badly and it's the people within it who alliw the poor prioritising to take place. Let me give you an example. My local MH Trust witb it's board papers recently published a 132 page equality report. The same trust whilst having time to do that was last summer under expert review for failing CAMHS reports. The E&D report will become shredder food; the mh of those young people, untreated, will become embedded.

The NHS needs root and branch reform for everyone; then it needs more funds.

This was reported in the Evening Standard last night:

www.standard.co.uk/news/health/health-chiefs-have-splashed-out-millions-with-no-benefit-to-patients-critics-say-a4070406.html

Spot on!

We put in a complaint about DM's care some months back. PALS now tell me the Surgical and Anaesthetic Care Group need more time to construct their response to our complaint and I should hear back by 19th March. We had no complaints about surgery (hip replacement) and I am assuming that pain relief must fall under ACG or else they are barking up the wrong tree.... hmm. Our complaints were: total failure in terms of pain relief; poor nursing care on wards; and a range of other stuff which so many of you have already referred to in terms of treatment of elderly, vulnerable patients.

Have they "misplaced her medical records" yet? That usually buys them a few months.

endof

It will be a scary amount of people dying from neglect in hospitals.
I was appalled at my elderly relative's lack of care on several occasions. Patients were calling for help to the toilet, that they couldn't reach their water, or if they could have a blanket. The staff just their eyes and ignored them so they could carry on chatting about the x factor. One patient did have an accident. Despite me complaining to their faces, by the time I'd left over an hour later, they were only just clearing up the line of shit down the ward. Wheelchairs had been pushed through it by then.
The ward got closed due to D&V a few days later. I am not surprised.
I complained to PALS and got fobbed off.
My relative did not go in their with dementia, but she came out with it. I swear the almost total isolation for 6 months did that to her. I visited every weekend but it was 200 miles away and I worked full time back then and it wasn't enough.
They may well have been understaffed but they also didn't give a shit and their horrid working conditions made them take it out on their patients, who were vulnerable.

It is said that there is a national shortage of 40,000 nurses. Is this in England and Wales or in the whole of the UK? The NHS still operates so maybe it doesnt need those 40,000 extra nurses anyway? There are apparently around 284,000 nurses operating in the uk. That sounds a lot already.

Read the horror stories here about what's happened to people in hospital and think about the difference filling those 40,000 nursing vacancies would make. Many wards don't even have safe staffing levels, let alone optimal ones.

wards often only cope because the relatives/friends help out more than they should.

Faultless A&E, eh? I'll preface the following by saying I'm in my 40s.

I've the (I hope unique) experience of having attended my local department over 50 (50, no typo) times in the past two and a half years, spending countless hours there, and on various wards. The care in A&E has ranged from superb to shit. I will say my one stint in resus was bloody amazing, bloods, doctor, vitals, ECG and meds all completed within an hour, including triage. Unfortunately I can temper this with being left on a trolley in a corridor, close to automatic doors in the cold, in abject, excruciating, pain for over 10 hours with no medication forthcoming.

There have been numerous occasions, really every occasion where care has been determined by which nurse, and which doctor, are assigned to care. I've also seen many occasions of superiority complexes - usually nursing staff, although doctors are not exempt.

I will spare you all but one ward experience, being forced out of bed and discharged within six hours of emergency surgery.