The Which? survey that found appalling treatment of the elderly

was reported on BBC News yesterday. "The standards of care provided for older people in their homes in the UK has been labelled "shocking and disgraceful" by a consumer group. Which? found cases of missed visits, food left out of reach, medication not given and people being left in soiled beds during its investigation." And the rest.

It is only the most recent among torrents of similar reports with their litanies of neglect, indifference, inhumanity, etc. resulting in very great suffering for far too many elderly and vulnerable people. These people have a right to expect better of society and of the workers who are employed to care for them on its behalf. My understanding is that health workers like doctors, nurses, dentists, etc have a 'duty of care' toward the people for whom they provide care, and that this 'duty of care' is a phrase with legal standing. Do carers employed to provide care in the domestic home rather than in hospitals and care homes have a similar 'duty of care' towards their charges/clients? - If so, then it's Heaven help the vulnerable! 'cos nothing at all is ever done about the staff in the hospitals and care homes who treat elderly patients with scandalous cruelty - nothing effective, nothing significant, nothing that appropriately punishes the wrongdoers or discourages others from similar behaviour. Nothing worthy of the name of action. Nothing.

Is this the way we want old people to be treated? - Our elderly relatives? - Ourselves? - Of course it isn't. - Then why do successive Governments permit it? and by permitting it, encourage it?

They have horrifying elder abuse in America as well as in the UK

They have horrifying elder abuse in America as well as in the UK. - Same causes: Failure to employ suitable people. Failure to investigate complaints. Useless regulatory systems. Failure to take appropriate measures to curb abuse when abuse is clear. Failure to take serious action in the criminal courts to punish the vile creatures who commit the atrocities. Failure to give a damn about the violated, vulnerable, fellow human beings who are the victims of such appalling assaults. The article for which I have given the link is about elder abuse in Minnesota. Maybe Michele Bachmann might be able to reduce these instances of inhumane treatment?

Harmful antipsychotic drugs are still being wrongly prescribed to dementia sufferers

BBC News reports that harmful antipsychotic drugs are still being widely and inappropriately prescribed to elderly dementia sufferers. "More than 50 health and social care organisations are calling for fresh action to cut the prescription of "chemical cosh" drugs. Around 180,000 people with dementia are thought to be prescribed antipsychotic drugs in the UK. But 80% of those prescriptions are said by critics to be inappropriate. Long-term use of the drugs can make dementia symptoms worse, reduce the ability to talk and walk and increase the risk of stroke and even death."

Anti-psychotics double the risk of pneumonia in the elderly

BBC News reports that Dutch researchers find that use of anti-psychotic drugs in the elderly doubles the risk of potentially fatal pneumonia. An expert report last year found that these drugs are responsible for up to 1,800 deaths in the UK every year and Ministers have said they want to see a significant cut in their use. What I want to see is Ministers putting a legal curb on the use of these drugs, which are overwhelmingly prescribed with no benefit whatsoever to the patient/victim.

Tell me, WHY are doctors (mainly paid by the State, i.e. paid by taxpayers) allowed to prescribe these harmful drugs for no good reason, and by means of the drugs allowed to damage the health of patients and cause them to die sooner than they otherwise would?

Why aren't the guilty doctors arrested and charged with Grievous Bodily Harm or Drug Abuse or some other appropriate charge and punished with the full rigour of the Law?

Is it because the State tacitly favours ending the lives of its citizens who are no longer part of the work force? Or is the explanation even more sinister?

Massive overuse of antipsychotics to treat elderly patients with dementia in UK's hospital wards.

The Telegraph reports on massive overuse of antipsychotics to treat elderly patients with dementia in UK's hospital wards. As well as the article itself, there is a letter today on the letters page of the Telegraph - a letter drawing attention to this scandalous abuse of the human rights of vulnerable citizens. The letter is signed by spokespeople for ten leading charities, carers groups and experts. These drugs cause serious side-effects and increase the risk of death. I am sure that the doctors who prescribe these dangerous drugs would run a mile from themselves being made to take the drugs! There is a similar situation in care homes - dementia patients being overprescribed this pharmaceutical junk, sometimes called a 'chemical cosh'.
But these facts are not new facts. They have long been known but nothing effective has been done to curb this abuse of NHS patients. The letter urges that the government crack down on this overprescribing. When I heard about this on the radio I gained the impression that it is doctors who are largely to blame. But the government must surely have the power to curb the reckless over-prescribing of drugs by our drug-obsessed doctors. - They should do so promptly. - I personally favour making it a criminal offence to prescribe this junk inappropriately, harming the patient. A few successful prosecutions would soon bring down the reckless prescribing rates of doctors.

I believe that such neglect should result in criminal prosecutions.

Letters Page of the Sunday Telegraph today

I hope you will go to the Telegraph link and read the shocking letter from Dr Peter N Hargreaves, a consultant in community palliative medicine in West Sussex. - Here are the first and last paragraphs:

"SIR – I applaud your campaign to right the disasters that are being inflicted daily on patients (report, March 29). I am a consultant in community palliative medicine and a great deal of my time is now taken up with trying to heal the psychological traumas that patients have endured while in hospital."

"An audit of my patients who received intravenous rehydration showed that 50 per cent of them went home. Refusal to rehydrate leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy of death. I am convinced large numbers of patients are having their lives shortened either by neglect or by express denial of simple therapies. "

Half of all nursing home residents in Britain are being wrongly drugged, a new study suggests, twice as many as previously thought.

Half of nursing home residents wrongly drugged, study shows
Article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"Experts who looked at 22 nursing homes found 51 per cent of residents were being inappropriately given drugs, including anti-psychotics, antidepressants and painkillers."

"Paul Burstow, the Liberal Democrat MP, said: “This adds to the growing evidence that inappropriate medicating in care homes is much more routine in practice than we would like to believe.

“And when it comes to the prescribing of anti-psychotics, these drugs are actually killing people. The Government must come up with concrete proposals to crack down on this problem.”

Mr Burstow has previously called for GPs who overprescribe to patients in homes to face prosecution.

The use of anti-psychotics has become increasingly controversial in recent years after they were linked to strokes. A report released last year suggested that the drugs could be responsible for more than 23,000 deaths in care homes every year."

Why is it OK for doctors and co. to be allowed to harm elderly people with impunity? - It would only need one or two of them to be prosecuted for bodily harm or whatever is the appropriate charge, and one or two of them going to prison if found guilty, and this scandalous, cruel abuse of power would stop.

Elderly people are being "mistreated and abused" in hospitals and care homes, according to a new report by Age Concern

Elderly people abused in hospitals and care homes
Article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"Age Concern criticises the lack of progress made a year on from a parliamentary report that recommended an "entire culture change" to tackle human rights abuses experienced by older people in the NHS and care system.

The new report includes examples of older people being left to sit in their own excrement or denied food and water because the staff are too busy, being left naked in front of other patients, or being heavily sedated so they are easier to care for."

"Norma Scott said her father died of renal failure after the way he was treated in a Yorkshire hospital.

She said: "We were told my father needed to be given extra fluids for his kidneys, but he wasn't given any help to drink water or to pass fluids. He couldn't use the water jug left by his bed as he couldn't sit up.

"After six days I spoke to a doctor. When a drip and catheter was fitted, two litres of urine were drained off. He died of renal failure.

"My father should not have been treated this way. It took months to get my complaint heard and I have been battling for many more months to get the hospital to implement the Action Plan. No one checks change has happened - it's all taken on trust.""

And British politicians have the cheek to criticise other countries about human rights! Our dreadful, uncaring, extremely expensive NHS system should be scrapped.

An NHS chief has apologised 22 times for his hospital's failure to care properly for an 89-year-old war veteran who died of the superbug C. diff

Letter that proves the sorry state of NHS care for elderly
Article in the Sunday Telegraph

Extract:

"In an extraordinary letter of confession, John Rostill, the chief executive of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, tells Susan Davies repeatedly that he is sorry for his staff's failure to provide adequate treatment for her father, Vic Jones, who served as a corporal in the Army in the Second World War.

Mr Jones died in May of a C. diff infection, which he had contracted in Worcestershire Royal Hospital after being admitted with pneumonia.

According to Mrs Davies, conditions on the wards were "grim". Her father was left next to a window in blazing sunshine in temperatures of over 80F, causing him to become dehydrated, she said.

Water was placed where he could not reach it, the hospital ran out of his medicine, and staff failed to order probiotic drinks that had been prescribed for him.

"There were faeces on his bandages and on the walls," she said. "Every day there were signs of neglect. I had to constantly complain to get even the most basic care for him.""

This appalling, cruel, negligent treatment and suffering is what we pay our high taxes for!

And even now, some deluded people speak of the NHS as the envy of the world! - Yeah, right!

Tens of thousands of vulnerable old people are suffering appalling abuse in homes for the elderly, experts are warning.

Thousands of elderly abused in care homes

Extract from the Telegraph:

"The first ever audit of calls to England's social care watchdog shows that more than 1,000 were made in just six months by people who suspected their relations or friends were being abused by care workers.

Social services chiefs estimate that a further 60,000 "alert calls" are made directly to local councils every year.

The Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) has uncovered homes where residents were routinely tied to their beds and chairs, locked up or dragged around by their hair. Some were refused food to punish "bad behaviour", denied trips to the lavatory or stolen from by staff."

"The audit was disclosed by the CSCI as it prepared to publish, on Wednesday, its first guide to all 4,000 residential homes in England for the elderly and disabled, giving each a star rating so that relations can compare factors such as the use of sedatives, staff training, and social activities.

The inspectorate has already said 248 homes do not meet basic safety standards. Investigations have revealed a woman of 85 who had her fingernails ripped off by a care worker, a 78‑year‑old covered in cigarette burns, and a number of thefts of pensions by "home helps"."

"Gary Fitzgerald, chief executive of the charity Action on Elder Abuse, said: "If you include abuse carried out by relatives and friends, studies suggest there could be 500,000 cases each year across Britain.""

www.elderabuse.org.uk

Elderly people with dementia are dying prematurely in care homes because of being prescribed 'chemical coshes'.

Drugs 'kill 23,000 Alzheimer's victims a year'

Extracts from the Telegraph:

"More than 23,000 elderly people with Alzheimer's could be dying prematurely in care homes each year after being given drugs to keep them quiet, a report claims today.

Anti-psychotic drugs, which are not licensed to treat dementia but are prescribed to control agitation, sleep disturbance and aggression, are being given to 100,000 elderly people to keep them "quiet and manageable", says a report by Paul Burstow, the Liberal Democrat MP and a campaigner for the rights of elderly people.

Despite studies that show the drugs can increase the risk of strokes and have other harmful side effects, the report claims the Government has failed to act to stem their use.

The report comes as research by three universities says long-term use of anti-psychotics offers "no long-term benefit for most patients".

The claims in the report will fuel the debate over the use of powerful drugs, dubbed "chemical coshes" because of their strong sedative effect, on care home residents."

"Mr Burstow said: "There are around 244,000 people with dementia living in care homes, and the Alzheimer's Society estimates 100,000 are being given anti-psychotic drugs. Of those, I am saying that 23.5 per cent could be dying prematurely as a result of being prescribed anti-psychotic drugs - or 23,500 people a year."

Neil Hunt, of the Alzheimer's Society, said: "The over-prescription of anti-psychotic drugs to people with dementia is a serious abuse of human rights. Anti-psychotics should be used as a last resort."

Mr Burstow's report, which will be debated in the Commons today, calls for urgent police action and a ban on routine prescribing."

In my opinion, doctors who are doing this cruel and harmful prescribing should be sent to prison.

You can lower your risk of vascular dementia and many other illnesses by eating less salt/sodium.

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

Report slams appalling treatment of elderly people in care homes

Report slams elderly care home treatment

Extracts from the Telegraph:

"The appalling treatment of elderly people in care homes has been laid bare in a report which found some are dragged around by their hair, strapped into wheelchairs, locked in their rooms and sedated.

The Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI), describes how frail and vulnerable people are mistreated and often threatened or intimidated. Its 65-page report, Rights, Risks and Restraints, is based on a survey of 253 older people and their carers and an analysis of complaints and official inspection reports."

"Charities for the elderly were united in regarding the stories of abuse as "horrendous". They include:

· A staff member dragging a resident by her hair and tying her to a chair.

· Two staff routinely wrapping immobile and incontinent residents tightly in sheets to prevent them moving.

· A woman being kept waiting up to three hours before being taken to the lavatory.

· A resident locked in a bathroom with a chair under the door handle and the light put out. Staff were told to serve her coffee in the lavatory."

Report demands law to protect elderly people in hospitals and care homes

A catalogue of abuse: report demands law to protect elderly in hospitals and care homes - Guardian

Extract:

"Vulnerable elderly people are being subjected to neglect, abuse, discrimination and ill-treatment in the hospitals and care homes that should be looking after them, according to a report published today by a parliamentary committee.

The study by the joint committee on human rights warns that many older people are facing maltreatment ranging from physical neglect so severe they are left lying in their own faeces or urine to malnutrition and dehydration through lack of help with eating.

Lack of dignity, especially for personal care needs, inappropriate medication designed more to subdue patients than treat them, and over-hasty discharge from hospital are also causing suffering for many older people, the MPs and peers conclude.

The report, the most high-level to date to highlight disturbing levels of neglect and abuse of the elderly in Britain, argues that the law should be strengthened to compel hospitals and care homes to protect the human rights of older people in their care.

The committee says that "an entire culture change" is needed to ensure that patients and staff who work with them are aware of their basic human rights. While there have been some recent signs of progress in policy and guidance, the rhetoric has not translated into practice on the ground, the report concludes.

It criticises the Department of Health and Ministry of Justice for failing to give leadership and guidance to providers of health and residential care. While overt age discrimination has reduced in hospitals and care homes, it still persists "in more subtle and indirect ways than in the past", says the report, which also criticises government moves to allow organisations to investigate complaints against them themselves.

The committee chairman, Andrew Dismore, said: "Neglect and ill-treatment of the elderly is a severe abuse of human rights. It is a serious betrayal of trust by the very people upon whom older people depend for care." Charities strongly backed the study, branding the treatment of elderly people in some hospitals and care homes scandalous and shameful."

Sir Norman Wisdom: - Does the way he is being treated amount to elder abuse and denial of his human rights? - What do you think?

Revealed: Why Sir Norman Wisdom's family won't let his friends see him - Daily Mail

If it is the case that Sir Norman is unable to see his friends it seems a shame. Without access to friends, life is bleak.

Extract:

"As Sir Norman Wisdom sits alone in his spartan room in an anonymous nursing home in the Isle of Man, he must wonder how it has come to this.

The floor is covered in lino, the hospital-style bed uncomfortably hard. His furniture consists of two plastic chairs, a plastic wardrobe and a plastic chest of drawers. There are few mementoes, rarely any visitors, and little to break up the monotony of his days.

His own home on the island, named Ballalough – Gaelic for 'house of laughs' – is less than 20 miles or a 30-minute drive away.

Filled with memorabilia spanning his 60-year career as one of the nation's best- loved comic actors, famed for his cloth cap and his slapstick humour, it is here that Sir Norman expected to live out his days.

Instead, four weeks ago, his children placed the 92-year-old comedian, who is suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer's, in the Abbotswood nursing home in Ballasalla. It is a difficult decision for any child to take but in this instance the consequences have been particularly damaging.

For The Mail on Sunday can reveal that there has been a bitter rift between Sir Norman's family and his closest friends.

His neighbours and long-time associates claim that his children, Nicholas, 55, Jacqueline, 52, and daughter-in-law, Kim, 53, have secured full power of attorney over Sir Norman's affairs and are selling off chunks of his estate without his knowledge."

It's well worth reading the whole article and the many comments left by concerned readers of the online article. I do hope that something will be done to allow Sir Norman to have visits from his friends. - What do you think about what has been done? - Should power of attorney be more strictly overseen and limited?

You can reduce your risk of developing dementia by reducing the amount of salt you eat. This brings many other health benefits too.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Care homes 'can evict elderly residents' - Telegraph

Extract:

"Hundreds of thousands of elderly people in private care homes are vulnerable to eviction, abuse and neglect after a House of Lords ruling that they are not covered by human rights laws, according to campaigners.

In a bitterly-fought landmark case five deeply divided Law Lords ruled by a majority of 3-2, that an 84-year-old woman with Alzheimer's disease threatened with eviction from her care home, did not enjoy the protection of the Human Rights Act given to residents of local authority run care homes.

The decision could affect up to 300,000 residents throughout the country who have been placed in private homes by their local authorities.

Nine out of ten care homes in England and Wales are now run by private firms.

Lawyers for the unnamed woman had argued that her threatened eviction from a private home, because of an alleged "irreconcilable breakdown" between her family and its management, was a violation of her right to family life.

But, the Law Lords ruled that a private home was not exercising a public function when it care for people referred to it by a council, and therefore was not bound by the Act.

The civil rights group Liberty condemned the ruling saying urgent legislation was now needed to change the Act to prevent local authorities from "contracting out of dignity for Britain's elderly".
Help the Aged said it was "a sickening blow to older people and their families everywhere" and that it left "vulnerable older people open to neglect, abuse and eviction, without redress through the Human Rights Act"."

You can reduce your own and your family's risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and many other chronic illnesses, including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, gallstones, stroke and cancer, by cutting down on salt and salty food. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html

More than 700,000 elderly people are subjected to abuse in their own homes or privately run nursing homes, study finds.

700,000 elderly people 'are being abused' The Observer

Extract:

"More than 700,000 elderly people are subjected to abuse in their own homes or privately run nursing homes, according to the results of a new study to be published this week.

The report - the first investigation for a decade to look at the abuse of the elderly in the UK - will say the rate of violence, bullying and neglect is significantly higher than was thought.

Although the rates of serious physical abuse and injury are relatively low, there are high levels of neglect, verbal assaults and behaviour that strips people of their self-esteem. The results are so serious that ministers are planning an overhaul of the adult protection system, which could lead to more people being prosecuted.

Care Minister Ivan Lewis, who has campaigned within the government for the dignity and privacy of older people, said: 'We need to have a fresh look at the whole adult protection regime in this country. I want to see a situation where people are as outraged by the abuse of an older person as they are by the abuse of a child. Sadly, we are nowhere near that yet as a society, but that culture has to change.'

Researchers from the King's Institute of Gerontology in London spent two years collecting data on the prevalence of abuse in private homes. The work is the first research funded by Comic Relief, and it was supported by the Department of Health.

The report will say the harm is often done to those who are particularly vulnerable because they have had a stroke or have dementia and cannot communicate properly. It will suggest that relatives need to look out for signs of abuse."


Lose weight and safeguard your health by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk and
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Further about poor care in care homes...

The consideration missing behind closed doors - Guardian

Extract:

"But it is not just a lack of care, it is a lack of common sense among care home staff. Rarely after calling an ambulance do the care home staff have the sense to unlock the front doors, or send someone to lead us to the patient.

All too often I have gone to care homes where the staff seem to know nothing about the patient. The patients aren't spoken to, just washed and watered. I walk past rooms where the bedbound are left staring at the TV for hours. I witness the nurses giving drugs to patients without knowing what the drugs are for, or their possible side effects. All this while cold food sits on tables, untouched because the patients aren't helped to eat it.

It's not just the homes that can be at fault. I recently put in a report about a doctor who prescribed a "teaspoon of salt in a cup of lemon juice, to be taken three times a day" to a 93-year-old woman. An ambulance officer will be visiting the GP and investigating this dangerous advice."

What is to be done about these care homes that provide 'uncare', unkindness and a ghastly end to the lives of so many old people? - And who in possession of a scrap of sense or common decency could prescribe a "teaspoon of salt in a cup of lemon juice, to be taken three times a day" to anyone? - And how can drugs take priority over food? - Good food is the best medicine...

Elder abuse. - Failing British care homes are exploiting loophole - to be featured in a BBC Panorama documentary tonight.

Failing care homes are exploiting loophole

Extract:

"Failing care homes which have been ordered to shut down are able to defy the sector's watchdog by remaining in business following serious allegations of neglect.

In the wake of allegations of abuse, homes can exploit a loophole in the law, allowing them to continue to operate by entering a lengthy appeals process.

The latest concerns about standards of care for thousands of elderly residents come in advance of a BBC Panorama documentary which will broadcast allegations tonight of abuse and neglect at two homes in Yorkshire."

This is reminiscent of the tactics employed by medical negligence lawyers, who routinely delay the slow-grinding wheels of the Law in the hope of exhausting the stamina/strength and/or the funds of the patients, or the families of the patients, who have been harmed by the medical negligence. - These delaying tactics should not, of course, be allowed.