Elderly people were denied treatment to stop the NHS being overrun

[Redolent]

This is being reported in The Times today:

“How the elderly paid the price of protecting the NHS from Covid-19”. .

Full article here:

archive.fo/anmfT

Parts of it make for difficult reading.

“The chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, commissioned an age-based frailty score system that was circulated for consultation in the health service as a potential “triage tool” at the beginning of the crisis. It was never formally published.
It gave instructions that in the event of the NHS being overwhelmed, patients over the age of 80 should be denied access to intensive care and in effect excluded many people over the age of 60 from life-saving treatment.

Testimony by doctors has confirmed that the tool was used by medics to prevent elderly patients blocking up intensive care beds.”

Triage tool that was circulating online from April, attached.

Are we going to see a return to this over winter? There has to be full transparency if so.

Piers Corbyn is over 70. He seems determined to catch Covid - what with his repeated travels into central London, presumably on public transport, deliberately not wearing a mask and refusing social distancing. Would he be denied treatment? Morally repugnant what he's doing aside, he's clearly pretty fit and healthy. Definitely not frail.

And Trump. He's over 70. Clearly treatment does sometimes work for that age group. (Whether the average person of any age would have access to the same medication he was given is another matter).

OK I'll consider myself warned off

No I have not done anything GMC reportable in that I have not offered a medical opinion on anyone's specific symptoms and I would absolutely never do so

I have put forward my opinion about a topical issue which is informed by my life experiences as surely everyone's is.

I'm in my 40s

I do usually try not to post too much but when your job is a lot of your life you do tend to have opinions about it and I am on holiday this week and bored in a lockdown half term.

Looks like a name change will be in order but presumably Mumsnet can catch up with me if you report me and take any action they deem necessary.

@NotAKaren

This whole thing is utterly terrifying for older people who are otherwise fit and well but fear that they may be denied treatment due to age. PIL are not worrying about the virus itself but about being bottom of the list for treatments. Whether it is accurate or not even the idea that this might be on the cards it is very very worrying for those concerned. Like they don't have enough to worry about.

I really hope I'm right, but I don't think that will happen this time.

It was the early panicked response and the catalogue of unforgiveable and inhumane errors from Hancock, Johnson and their team of merry men which caused it.

It's interesting to hear what the medical people among you say about morphine. I am really not one of those people who want to preserve life at all costs in the very old and sick, but to deny people pain relief is wrong on every level. When my dad was nearing the end of his life after a long and miserable struggle with Alzheimer's I was begging the doctors to stop pumping him full of antibiotics, but they just said they had to. But if he had been in pain, then easing his passing with morphine would have been what we wanted.

Just as unforgiveable is letting untrained staff at care homes list Covid as the primary cause of death for so many when they weren't even examined by a medical professional, much less given a test.

Morally repugnant what he's doing aside, he's clearly pretty fit and healthy. Definitely not frail.

Well luckily people's morals are not a factor when it's decided whether or not to treat them.

No need to name change @Theld

You are entitled to an opinion. FWIW I agree with you. I think when you see the brutal reality of ICU with your own eyes (was redeployed there during 1st wave) any notion of trying to save everyone irrespective of outcome is destroyed

I have no intention of reporting anybody Theld.

@HesterShaw1

Morally repugnant what he's doing aside, he's clearly pretty fit and healthy. Definitely not frail.

Well luckily people's morals are not a factor when it's decided whether or not to treat them.

Sadly their age and disability status is.

I meant - would he be denied treatment because of being over 70.

It raises a question though. What if triage was based on whether or not somebody was a Covid denier?

It's not about ICU! FFS!

It raises a question though. What if triage was based on whether or not somebody was a Covid denier?

Are you even reading the same thread?

Of course it doesn't raise that question. Any more than "Should be people be left to drown by the RNLI because they have been stupid and clueless?" Rescue services are the first to tell you they don't judge.

And now back to the actual discussion.

It's relevant @HesterShaw1
This thread discusses the NHS denying treatment based solely on age or disability. Would the rescue services you refer to fail to rescue somebody because they were over 60 or 70, or disabled? (I hope not!).

It discusses the lengthy Sunday Times investigation linked to in the OP. Have you read it?

Have you read everyone's contributions?

Yes read both the investigation and the thread. Have you?

The investigation. Shocking isn't it.

Um yes. I have linked and referred to it several times elsewhere in this topic, and if you have read my posts, you can see it's obvious that I find it shocking, for reasons I have explained nice and clearly.

I definitely think social class/wealth will come into it, the better off in society will probably get preferential treatment as their prognosis will be higher/better.
I imagine most of the people who died in care house of Covid were in council/social funded places.

It feels like people are wilfully misunderstanding the difference between something like

"we wouldn't give intensive care for covid to most people over a certain age because they're unlikely to be helped by it"

and

"we won't give intensive care for covid to anyone over a certain age (or rushed through covid triage score), regardless of whether or not they might be helped by it"

It's the second one older and disabled people are worried about. That's not normal medical decision making, which I think most people understand perfectly well and don't need to have explained to them over and over again. Surely people can see why that is frightening, if you're older and fit or younger and disabled?

With enough pressure on systems, tools like that will be used in an emergency, and it's completely rational to be frightened of being triaged away from care that you would normally have a chance if getting. If it's already happened when it didn't really need to, that isn't something we should just accept as OK.