Six vulnerable patients died because of uncaring NHS

Health Service and Local Government Ombudsmen reports found that patients with learning difficulties were treated less favourably than others (surely they mean appallingly) and this resulted in "prolonged suffering and inappropriate care". Relatives who complained were effectively ignored.

Mencap, the respected learning disability charity, complained on behalf of the families of six vulnerable people who died in NHS or local authority care between 2003 and 2005, and an investigation was launched.

The Healthcare Commission itself was also criticised.

Mencap wrote about "Death By Indifference"

and here is today's article on the subject in the Telegraph

A vulnerable patient died of starvation in an NHS hospital after 26 days without food, according to Mencap, the disability charity.

Patient 'died of starvation in NHS hospital'
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Martin Ryan, 43, was left unable to swallow after suffering a stroke but a "total breakdown in communication" meant he was never fitted with a feeding tube.

Doctors thought that nurses were feeding him through a tube in his nose, an internal inquiry by the hospital found.

But by the time they discovered this was not happening, he was too weak for an operation to insert a tube into his stomach. Mr Ryan, who had Down's syndrome, died in agony five days later.

Disability charity Mencap said the case was one of several where the NHS "completely and unacceptably failed" patients with learning difficulties through a "catalogue of disasters".

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman is expected to issue a similarly damning verdict on the NHS later this month.

Other cases highlighted by Mencap include Emma Kemp, 26, who was denied cancer treatment that could have saved her life.

Another patient Mark Cannon, 30, died two months after being admitted to hospital with a broken leg.

Three other cases followed similar patterns, with warnings ignored or problems missed until it was too late, often because the patients had difficulty communicating.

The father of one man who died, who was just 20, said: 'People like my son are treated as less than human'.

The six cases were raised by Mencap in a report entitled Death By Indifference."

Horrific avoidable suffering and death like this would not happen if health professionals were accountable for failures in their duty of care. If the police were to do the inquiries, rather than the hospital, and if the negligent doctors and nurses in this or a similar case were named and shamed and sent for trial for an offence called something like 'professional negligence leading to manslaughter', and received an appropriate sentence - surely a prison sentence - this dreadful cruel neglect would stop immediately. - Although they clearly do not care about the welfare of these patients, they assuredly care about their own...