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

Hospitals are just not geared up to cater for very dependent elderly people. Ironically, the frailer and more in need of help they are, the less well they fare in hospitals and care homes - the very places which ought to be able to offer them a lifeline. You need to be pretty robust and self-sufficient, or have caring and combative relatives, to survive a hospital stay.

The staff in our local hospital are wonderful but only human. They do have a lot of volunteers that help with general care, without them I do think people would be at risk.

MIL was in hospital with Sepsis from a UTI. She has Dementia, Diabeties, Heart Condition and a High blood pressure.

FIL also early 70s is of the ‘never question’ generation. So he took in all her meds, as instructed and gave them to the nursing staff so they could give them to her as prescribed.

We visited every day, and on the 4th day MIL asked me to pass her something out of the bedside cabinet. I realised all her meds were in it. So went to find a nurse to find out why. Turned out they thought she could self medicate! The sepsis has made her dementia way worse and she couldn’t even remember 5 minutes ago, let alone what medicine to take when, especially as FIL does it all at home as she’s so
bad. And he didn’t think to question any nurses about how it was being given out. So she hadn’t had any meds for 4 days, quiet how she didn’t die or at least end up with her diabetes going completely wrong I don’t know. Would never trust them again.

The hospital that my elderly father was in thought it was a good idea to give patients bottles of water. Except that my father couldn’t open the lid. I visited 3 days later and he had a line of bottles next to his bed all unopened. He sadly died in that hospital. From lack of care and understanding regarding elderly people.

My great granny died in hospital at 98. She went in after falling and lying on the floor for a day. She broke her leg and because she’d lain on her arm she lost feeling. But she was compass mentus, going up to the ward telling her grandson not to get her underthings at home, but to ask his mum, apologising for causing a bother. She basically didn’t get a drink from then on in. When everyone visited they got her tea and drinks but there was never any evidence in between times. She was hallucinating she was back in WW2 trying to maintain the blackout. It sounds funny but she was terrified because she didn’t feel safe. Her daughters were getting as much fluid into her as they good in the visiting time but they also had to check everything else. My dm lost it when she visited and she was sitting in a seat with only her bad arm free and her broken leg in plaster unsupported and dangling. Meanwhile all the nurses made lots “aw bless” noises.
Dehydration is so so scary in elderly people I don’t know why they are not more often on a fluid drip.

30 poorly elderly patients (who need a lot of help with eating, drinking, taking their meds, personal care etc) + 2 registered nurses + 2 unregistered nurses = poor care.

Those kind of numbers just don't add up to anything other than poor care unfortunately. I'm a nurse, and would love to have minimum staffing levels set in law in the UK. They have been in Wales last year I think (though unlikely to be enforced sadly).

If you Google "nurse patient ratio mortality" it makes for pretty sad reading. One study showed that if one nurse is looking after 8 patients, then every additonal patient added after that will increase the mortality (death) rate by 7%. I regularly used to look after 16 patients, so that's a 56% increase, probably due to basic stuff that is so important for older people, like encouraging/helping them to drink. I could never go back to working on a general ward now.

My mum was in the cardiac ward a few weeks ago and the so called care and attention from the nurses was appalling, she worked as a staff nurse at our local cottage hospital for years looking after elderly patients, she always treated people like she’d want her own family to be treated .

I think they should bring back training on the wards as we’ve ended up with hundreds of nurses who ideal on paper but who haven’t got an ounce of compassion or caring

It's nothing to do with training and everything to do with staffing levels.

If you don't have the nurses on the wards, patients die end, the research is very clear.

16 patients per nurse is ridiculous. A drug round alone will take you forever and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Every patient needs showering, feeding, fluid, observations, monitoring, care plans followed and written, scans, investigations, ward rounds, bloods, repositioning, help mobilising, going to the toilet, notes need to be written. The list is endless and it's an impossible task.

Some bucket maths. To look after one dependant elderly person thoroughly, including washing, mouth care, hair/ shaving, feeding, helping drink, out of bed, back into bed, using commode/bedpan, I recon a minimum of 3 and a half hours. So over a 12 hour shift, assuming the HCA gets their 2x half hour breaks they have time to care properly for 3 patients? And how many do they actually have? 6-7 on a good day? 9, 10, up to 14 at night?

Exactly the same experience when my Nan was dying, we often had to chase overdue meds’ while she cried in pain . I’ve noticed our hospital doesn’t enforce visiting hours like they used to, except for the maternity unit. I don’t know if staff are too busy to enforce it but it must be a help having relatives in when staffing levels are so low. It’s probably the elderly with nobody to help/speak for them that are neglected the most

I've seen first hand some really lovely, caring nurses and staff this past month looking after my relative in hospital but have also witnessed some things that need addressed, such as:

My relative being a texture E diet and being left meals which are meant for those who can eat normally. When I mentioned this there was an apology but it happened again on the next meal.

Her medicine drawer left unlocked and half open while visiting time came and went.

The water jug and cup left in reaching distance to her but she can't have normal fluids and needs them thickened as she chokes and has had serious issues with choking.

Her oxygen masked removed for them to change her and then an hour later another relative realised she hadn't been wearing it and informed a nurse who was clearly annoyed at the other nurses who hadn't put it back on here.

A massively important medical diagnosis not updated in her files even though I stressed the change in diagnosis when she was admitted so the wrong meds given that evening.

An elderly lady in a side room whos buzzer had been sat out of reach as she was pressing it too often.

An elderly lady peeing herself and leaving a puddle after asking 3 times for the toilet in the space of an hour and being told just a minute each time.

There's always a family member staying with her but I would hate to think of the care she would receive if we weren't there.

I used to be a nurse and worked through an agency for a few years when my DC were little. I mainly worked in smaller nursing homes as the only trained nurse on a night shift.

I was a home for the first time and was looking for something to keep me busy during the night so I noticed that the drug trolley was due to be restocked, and the unused drugs returned to the pharmacy.

I was surprised by how many drugs were left in the previous month's dosette boxes and started to cross-check against the recording sheets to see why they hadn't been given. I turned out that several patients almost never received important medication, like Thyroxine or Digoxin because apparently they were usually 'asleep' at the time of the morning medication round, which was when these drugs were prescribed to be administered.

These drugs can be given late, with a note made in the records, or could have been prescribed for a different time if the GP had been give a good reason to do so, but they certainly should have been given one way or another. These patients only averaged getting their drugs about 25% of the time. These were drugs which were very important to their comfort and their general health.

Yes, I reported it to the management in the morning and I let the inspection body know. Atrocious nursing.

Lots. If you haven't the strength to shout out, you have to wait until the next time you're on the rota.

The care was so poor at our local hospital when my mother in law was in (age 93) a few years ago that after they'd forgotten to give her vital medication and insulin 3 days running, we paid a carer to go in at mealtimes and bedtime if we couldn't be there.
One evening, I arrived on the ward just as 2 hcp's were changing her. I waited outside the door to let them finish, they didn't know I was there, as they were changing her, one if them (male) started shouting at her because she wouldn't roll over or lift her legs. She couldn't, she'd forgotten how. The only way to get her to cooperate was to talk gently and coax her. I opened the door and the shouting stopped. When they went to leave the room, I told the male hcp that he was never to go near her again. He went bright red and muttered under his breath that she wouldn't do as she was told. I hit the roof! She was so upset that I stayed with her until she was asleep, way past visiting hours, but nobody dare come in and ask me to leave.
The next morning I went in to find her unresponsive. She hadn't eaten any breakfast because she couldn't feed herself but she'd been given her full dose of insulin without having her blood checked first.
Once I had the carer going in, she recovered and was home within 2 weeks.

@fezzesarecool keeping the terribly overstretched staff on the phone as many times a day as possible isn't going to help them find time to care for your relative. I think that's quite poor advice.

Failures in the health service are almost always down to lack of staff, money and resources, not laziness or wilful neglect.

YANBU. I have been in hospital six times in the past 10 years. Five out of six times I was well enough to fight for what I needed (not in a demanding way, just basic care).
The one time I was too ill to do so, I ended up having a haemorrhage because no one would bloody listen to me.

Just to say not all hospitals are like this, I work on a health care of the elderly ward and we specialise in dementia patients which means we generally get all the confused patients over 65.
They should have food and fluid charts which are to be filled in in real time so as and when food is provided and should have an outcome such as how much eaten/drunk if declined etc.
They also have intentional rounding which is completed at least 2 hourly to say patient has been checked on/reposition if needed, toilet food all the basic needs.
I feed at least 2 patients assist others with cutting up etc this is in addition to washing toileting, keeping our bays tidy infection control and any other things that are asked.

@BSJohnson

Do you mean she had a fall whilst on the ward and broke her hip because there's a big difference....

Unless there's something severely wrong with the bone, it's virtually impossible to break an adult humans hip using manual force.

We don't know. The first we knew was when she was delivered home by ambulance, and was in agony during her first change (wears pads). It persisted, and was checked out after a few days, and broken hip. MAYBE it was the ambulance guys, but they were excellent both times at the home end, whereas my dad said the Wycombe nurses were VERY brusque and careless. He - and mum's home caters - suspect a fall out of bed in hospital. ☹️

Caters = carers

Lots OP. You are right. I think elderly people in hospital need advocates.

I’d agree with the notion that not all staff are kind, I’d say it’s 50/50. I was on a surgical ward that had worked out so there was 2 of us and 4 staff. Before the shift change it was awful, my heart rate was high as I’d reacted to a general and I was irritably shouted at ‘relax!’ by one. Ironically she woke me a few times doing this. No call bell, nothing in reach and hooked up to too much to get anything. It was quickly established that this was not a comfortable environment to ask in. The shift change, I was given a call bell, checked I was comfy and it was so quiet a nurse came to chat and be pleasant. Like night and day.

After my experiences of being in hospital I’m terrified of the places. If you have no relatives you’re screwed

Terrifying reading.

This is a thread that I hope IS picked up by Daily Mail, loose women, Jeremy Vine, whoever...

This needs to change.

I remember someone telling me that in europe the family have to come in and help, we need to have this attitude here. Family need to go in and feed their relatives.