Dr Le Fanu draws attention to problems with regard to drugs prescribed for elderly hospital patients

Dr Le Fanu draws attention to problems with regard to drugs prescribed for elderly hospital patients to take when they leave hospital, particularly if they have memory or cognitive impairment, which, he reminds us, "can be caused or exacerbated by medication, particularly the cholesterol-lowering statins."

Disgracefully poor care for elderly patients in some UK hospitals

Today's is but the latest of the litany of shameful reports of Britain's substandard treatment of elderly, vulnerable people in NHS hospitals. In the Telegraph we read: "Unacceptable care has become standard in some trusts, with doctors and nurses talking down to patients, ignoring their calls for assistance and failing to help them eat, drink or wash. After carrying out spot checks at geriatric wards in 100 hospitals, the commission found that 35 needed to make improvements, 18 were failing to meet legal standards and there were “major concerns” at two trusts."

This has rightly been the top news item today, both in print and on the broadcast media. There are always apologists with their ever-ready excuses of insufficient cash/time/nurses/resources, of course, but this will cut no ice with people who have experienced the routine 'uncare' for themselves, or have visited neglected elderly patients on these wards of shame. "Katherine Murphy, the chief executive of the Patients Association, said: “Yet another report to add to the plethora of other reports, all highlighting the same issues around poor care of elderly patients in hospital. "How many reports do we have to look at and how many times do the public need to hear about this before the right action is taken?”"

Why does nothing improve? - I'll tell you why: because no-one is held accountable. - Remember, despite presiding over the avoidable suffering and deaths of around 400 patients at that infamous, inhuman Stafford hospital between January 2005 and March 2009, Martin Yeates, claiming to be 'ill', was allowed to cry off even attending at the public inquiry into the scandal! Furthermore he received a golden handshake - £400,000 (that's a thousand pounds for each death!) - and has a jewel-encrusted pension to look forward to, as well as being able to apply for other obscenely-highly paid similar jobs in another area! Instead of being tried in a criminal court for the manslaughter of hundreds of his fellow-citizens, this scoundrel has been richly rewarded for his dereliction of duty.

When grave wrongdoing incurs no sanction, there will be no reform. We have read today of hospitals that are 'failing to meet legal standards'. - Very well, let's see the people responsible for this tried in court and sentenced appropriately. That would very soon result in better care for vulnerable patients.

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."

Can there be another country that treats elderly patients worse than the UK?

Frankly, I doubt it. So many times I have blogged about elderly patients in UK hospitals being left unfed or underfed, dehydrated because no one gave them a drink of water, lying in bed in pain and in misery, humiliation and excreta, because no one had the decency or compassion to take them to the toilet or help them onto a commode or bedpan, often with bedsores or avoidable injuries because of poor nursing. Over and over and over and over again we read accounts of such awful suffering. It makes you sick to the stomach and sick at heart. This is our much-vaunted NHS! These are our healthcare professionals.

Yesterday was another of these days of shame, the news media full of the scandalous 'care' accorded to elderly patients in 3 hospitals in particular - 3 in particular out of 12 hospitals that the Care Quality Commission inspected unannounced and were appalled by. See this BBC News report. Yes, I know that not every British hospital and not every nurse treats elderly vulnerable patients in this disgracefully cruel way, but how does that excuse the ones that do?

What do we routinely hear after such sordid revelations? - It is usually a statement couched in strange jargon-ridden gobbledygook that favours weasel words and the passive voice. We are told that 'lessons have been learned' and other lies. And nothing changes. No one is arraigned and charged for their cruelty and neglect, no one is even sacked, for their dereliction of duty, for their failure to fulfil their duty of care. We all pay a great deal of money by way of taxes for our massively flawed NHS. Some of us, especially the elderly and the vulnerable, are getting a very poor deal indeed.

Are you your brother's keeper? your father's/mother's/sister's/friend's defender?

Yesterday on the radio I heard a woman tell of the neglectful and very distressing treatment of her elderly father, leading to his suffering and death in hospital. Her voice was clearly affected by emotion as she spoke of the guilt she feels and will carry to her grave by not speaking out about it at the time, not trying to put a stop to it, not fighting for him to be treated compassionately as a human being, he who had been a good man, a good father, a father whom she had loved.

We are all tempted to do nothing in the face of evil when the evil is being done to someone else. We are all tempted to kid ourselves that things aren't really as they seem, or that by 'interfering' we would maybe make matters worse, to delude ourselves that matters will surely improve without our having to intervene, to be brave, to risk getting into some sort of trouble or embarrassment. And we leave the victims, the suffering ones, the ill and weak and frail and exhausted ones, our relatives, our loved ones, our friends, to struggle on without our help. We have become complicit in the negligence.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke. Fight for accountability in the NHS. - See Fighting the System.

The Ombudsman's damning report of cruel neglect of vulnerable elderly patients in NHS hospitals and staff's callous indifference to their suffering

The Ombudsman's damning report of cruel neglect of vulnerable elderly patients in NHS hospitals and callous indifference to their suffering by staff employed to look after them has filled our newspapers and our broadcast media. See Telegraph report here, BBC report here, Guardian report here. We have many times over many years read of such horrors. Nothing appropriate is ever done about this atrocious cruelty by healthcare staff on their innocent fellow citizens - their patients, their victims. Read the Comments left beneath the newspaper articles and see other sickening examples of arrant cruelty by our highly-paid healthcare staff.

Since its inception the NHS has been protected from censure and sanction alike in matters of professional negligence. For decades its damaged victims were prohibited from even making a complaint! Then when complaints at last were permitted, the standard response to serious complaints was that the complainant was mistaken, lying, half-witted, mentally ill, trying to obtain compensation without cause, and similar nonsense directed toward attacking the complainant rather than investigating the complaint. Nothing was done about actually dealing with the complaints. And this is still the case.

In the intervening years it has become easier to make a complaint, but still nothing is done about the complaint, and the cases of negligence are increasing - inevitably, since the staff learn more and more surely, that they are unaccountable. The NHS Complaints Procedures are, and are designed to be, exercises in futility, and the Government is hoping to put an end to any scrap of justice for victims of medical negligence who go to Law by removing the possibility of legal aid in these cases.

As usual people who are ever-ready to defend the indefensible assure us that these flaws must be looked at in perspective, likewise assuring us that the vast majority of NHS patients are happy with their treatment. - Not remotely true, dear Reader. - That there are a lot of people ready to defend the NHS is not unconnected with the fact that the NHS is the largest employer in Europe, and so its employees and their dependants defend it. By contrast, read this Guardian article: "Half the patients treated in NHS hospitals are dissatisfied with the standard of care, a survey by the consumer organisation Which? reveals today. But it found few patients complain to NHS staff about inedible food, lack of cleanliness or poor organisation on the wards.

Among those who were dissatisfied, over a third thought raising an issue would not make any difference. Almost a quarter said nothing because they "expected their hospital stay to be like that" and 12% feared that a complaint would provoke reprisals and compromise their care.

Which? said doctors, managers and politicians interpreted the low level of complaints as evidence of patient satisfaction. But the survey suggested they were fooling themselves."

The appallingly poor treatment, including being left to starve, of thousands of elderly dementia patients in UK hospitals

See this report in the Telegraph. - Doesn't it shock you and make you feel ashamed of the NHS? Why isn't something done about it? We will all be old one day unless we die before our time. Is this the way you would be happy to be treated if you ever suffer the misfortune of developing dementia and going into one of these uncaring hospitals? Why don't staff who are maltreating patients in these ways get identified and punished? - Why are they allowed to get away with it, since this clearly encourages them to continue in the same cruel way?

Dangers for elderly patients who regularly take opioid painkillers

It is often the arthritis sufferers among elderly patients who most regularly take painkillers, because their pain tends to be chronic. Adverse side-effects are not uncommon, especially with the opioid painkillers, which include codeine, morphine, methadone and brand names such as Demerol, Percocet, Percodan, Darvon, , Vicodin, and Lomotil. The side-effects can be very serious, even dangerous, e.g. more fractured bones. Read this report on MedicalNewsToday.

Yet there is a completely safe and very effective way to reduce the pain/severity of osteo-arthritis, and it does not involve taking pharmaceutical drugs. - You just need to avoid salt and salty food as much as you can. - The less salt you eat, the less pain you will experience from your arthritis...(o: And, since you will also lose some excess water weight from your body which salt has been holding there, there will be less wear and tear on your joints, not having to carry so much water around. - So give salt the elbow, and say goodbye both to so much pain and to dangerous drugs. - See salt/sodium in foods.

Well done to the Daily Mail for campaigning about the appalling care provided to far too many elderly patients by our unaccountable NHS!

As readers of this blog already know, the NHS Complaints Procedure does nothing about complaints except make life harder for the complainants; it is a sheer waste of time and effort making a complaint about poor or negligent treatment. And Kenneth Clarke, the Secretary of State for 'Justice', is proposing to remove clinical negligence from the scope of the civil legal aid scheme, so no help there either for anyone brave enough to take on as adversaries the extremely experienced legal eagles employed by the NHS and the healthcare professionals.

So very well done to the Daily Mail for campaigning about the appalling care accorded to far too many elderly patients by our non-accountable NHS, and for making a large donation to the Patients Association, a charity that tries to help victims of poor NHS treatment.

NHS provides poor care for elderly surgery patients

BBC News informs us that "Hospitals must improve their care of elderly patients undergoing surgery, an independent review has concluded. Pain management, nutrition and delays were all highlighted as problems by experts from the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death. Overall, just over a third of patients were judged to have had good treatment."

I heard this discussed on Radio 4's Today programme the other day and was dismayed that the discussion was steered almost immediately into focussing on the need for better pain relief. - I may be in a minority, even a very small minority, here, but I believe the strong emphasis on pain relief is counterproductive. - What is far more necessary and far more beneficial is to work at pain prevention. - This means the surgeons should perform any necessary surgery ASAP instead of after considerable delays which increase the pain and emotional distress, compromise nutrition, extend the length of hospital stay, and result in more complications and greater need for rehabilitation and caring. - As far as I am concerned, stuff the pain relief and the dedicated pain teams and the multitude of pain-killers with their many harmful side-effects! Concentrate on getting the surgery done as a matter of urgency and compassion, and providing nutritious food and good nursing to promote a speedy recovery.

Age UK survey finds hospitals are still failing on nutrition for elderly patients

See BBC News report. Michelle Mitchell, from Age UK, says, "Not enough is being done to ensure that words are transferring into action on the wards."

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?

Further severe criticism of poor NHS treatment of elderly patients and dementia patients

BBC News reports further severe criticism by the Alzheimer's Society of NHS treatment of elderly patients and dementia patients. Half of all dementia sufferers leave hospital in a worse state than when they arrived.

"The Patients' Association said it was a "sad indictment" of the priority our society gives to elderly people.

"There is now an overwhelming amount of evidence that elderly patients are being neglected in hospitals across the NHS.

"Whether they have dementia or not, if they are in need of help with personal care many of them won't get it. Time after time the issue is raised, but the problems continue.""

And of course NHS Complaints Procedures are Orwellian in the extreme. Nothing gets improved.

The NHS is extremely expensive and so much of the vast expense is wasted and compounded by providing poor and damaging treatment for the most vulnerable patients, who are most in need of care and compassion. - And heaven help you if you haven't any family to visit and stick up for you!

Dame Joan Bakewell highlights ageist attitudes and poor care for elderly people by NHS and in care homes.

Dame Joan Bakewell has drawn attention to ageist attitudes, neglect and poor care for elderly people by the NHS and in care homes. See Telegraph report.

The treatment of Alzheimer's disease patients in UK hospitals is a 'disgrace'

The Telegraph reports that the treatment of Alzheimer's disease patients in Britain's hospitals is so poor that many relatives are driven to complain, and many more would like to complain. Some patients are going hungry because they were not helped to eat or drink and many are generally treated with a lack of basic dignity and respect. The Alzheimer’s Society has said that the situation is a “disgrace”.

Dementia is by no means an inevitable consequence of aging. You can reduce your risk of developing dementia or any of a host of illnesses commonly, but inaccurately, attributed to aging, by avoiding dieting, by avoiding taking prescription drugs unless they are absolutely necessary, and by seriously cutting down on your intake of salt and salty food.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk 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

And see Sodium in foods

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.

NHS in the rôle of the Grim Reaper

The Telegraph reports that doctors who are experts in terminal care have misgivings about the frequency with which terminal sedation is being used to bring to an end the lives of many elderly patients.

Details of the appalling nursing care endured by many elderly patients in NHS hospitals

BBC News reports on some of the individual personal accounts of suffering and neglect brought to public attention earlier this week by the Patients Association.

Details of these individual case studies are indicative of the appalling standards of healthcare offered to too many unfortunate sick people in NHS hospitals.

I find the tone of the comments by the spokespeople for the hospitals chilling. There seems to be no real appreciation of the horror these patients/victims have endured at the hands of the 'caring' professions. The indefensible is defended with shocking complacency.

Some further individual accounts, reported in the Telegraph:
Ann McNeill
Colin Purkiss
Thomas Dalziel.

And here is a young doctor's concerned account of a personal recollection of lack of care and compassion on NHS wards: Dr Max Pemberton writing in the Telegraph.

The government has responded with Statistics not Care.

The Patients Association highlights appalling standards of NHS hospital care for the elderly, giving examples of patients left dehydrated or lying in faeces, blood and urine.

BBC News reports that many elderly patients are receiving appalling care in NHS Hospitals.

The Patients Association highlights appalling standards of NHS hospital care for the elderly, giving examples of patients left dehydrated or lying in faeces, blood and urine.

Claire Rayner, formerly a nurse, now President of the Patients Association said: "I am sickened by what has happened to some part of my profession of which I was so proud. These bad, cruel nurses may be - probably are - a tiny proportion of the nursing workforce, but even if they are only one or two per cent of the whole they should be identified and struck off the Register."

Government chief nursing officer Chris Beasley said: "All patients deserve the highest quality of care from the NHS and the poor care received in these cases is simply unacceptable." Apologists for poor standards of NHS 'care' customarily add, as Chris Beasley adds here in this report, that the 'vast majority of patients experience good quality, safe and effective care."

I am willing to concede that possibly a slight majority of patients are reasonably satisfied, but to claim this to be a 'vast' majority is way off the mark. Most people put up with a lot of substandard care, knowing that complaints are unwelcome and tend to provoke reprisals, this being particularly the case with the more vulnerable and elderly, frail patients.

Inferior healthcare for older citizens, obesity, chronic illnesses, frailty and a way forward.

Read this candid World Net Daily article on widespread government practice that gives inferior healthcare to older citizens. Essentially the message is that it is a matter of cost.

But quite apart from the human suffering, unfairness, hypocrisy and lies that result from giving inferior healthcare to older people, I invite you to consider a better, more moral, and, amazingly, much cheaper alternative...(o:

Tell people the truth about prescription drugs, obesity and the salt connection.

Chronic illness and frailty are the main reasons that old people's healthcare costs tend to be higher than younger people's. Obesity is the main underlying cause of most chronic illness and a lot of frailty. It is therefore increasingly desirable to reduce the incidence and severity of obesity because this would reduce chronic illness, frailty and human suffering to a small fraction of what it is now. But this CANNOT be achieved by continuing to give the wrong information about the causes of obesity and about how best to reduce obesity.

Obesity is NOT caused by eating too many calories/too much fat and/or taking too little exercise. - No matter how many doctors and other 'experts' claim that it is, and that it can be reduced by eating fewer calories and taking more exercise, they are wrong and it is still NOT true. - The hypothesis has never been put to the test scientifically and there is certainly not a shred of valid evidence to back it up.

There is a wealth of evidence to show that it is NOT true. - Millions upon millions of innocent overweight people have tried over decades to reduce their excess weight by eating fewer calories and taking more exercise. - Overwhelmingly they fail to lose weight this way. - They get tired; they feel cold and ill and hungry. But they do not lose weight (or if they do it is only temporary). - The 'experts' then tell them that they have done it wrong; they haven't tried hard enough or long enough; they are lying; they are mistaken, etc. - The 'experts' cannot get their heads around the fact that it is THEY who are wrong; THEY who are lying; THEY who are mistaken...

Obesity is caused by fluid retention in people who are sensitive to salt. - It is as simple, and as profoundly complex, as that.

Now - what really causes the fluid retention/salt sensitivity/obesity? - Here are the main causes:

1. Prescription drugs such as tricyclic antidepressants like amitriptyline.

Amitriptyline is also known as Elavil, Tryptanol, Endep, Elatrol, Tryptizol, Trepiline, Laroxyl, and is present in some combination drugs, e.g. Limbitrol is a drug which combines amitriptyline and chlordiazepoxide.

Weight gain is also widely reported by people taking Lexapro, Prozac, Fontex, Celexa and Paxil. These are not tricyclic antidepressants; they are SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors). As with the tricyclic antidepressants, the weight gain is because of sodium retention and fluid/water retention, and can be avoided/reduced by avoiding eating salt and salty food.

2. Other prescription drugs such as steroids including prednisolone (also sold as Pediapred®), prednisone (also sold as Deltasone®, Meticorten, Orasone and SK-Prednisone), cortisone, hydrocortisone, dexamethasone, betamethasone, beclomethasone, fludrocortisone, triamsinolone, desonide, fluprednidene, clobetasone, alclomethasone, momethasone, desoxymethasone, fluosinonide, budesonide, fluosinolone, triamcinolone (trade names Kenalog, Aristocort, Nasacort, Tri-Nasal, Triderm, Azmacort, Trilone, Volon A, Tristoject, Fougera, Tricortone, Triesence) and other corticosteroids, Advair - a combination drug that contains Fluticasone, a corticosteroid, HRT and other medications containing oestrogen - like some birth control medication (contraceptives) - amitriptyline and some other anti-depressants, some anti-psychotic drugs, including Zyprexa (aka olanzapine) and other psychotropic drugs, and some anti-epileptic/anticonvulsant drugs, notably valproate (trade name Epilim).

If you have been inappropriately prescribed or over-dosed with corticosteroids or HRT or the many other drugs that cause weight gain, then you may well have developed drug-induced Cushing's Syndrome, a very serious illness, frequently far more serious than the health problem for which the drugs were prescribed. It is, to the best of my knowledge, an entirely preventable illness if doctors conform to the protocols for prescribing these drugs and if they monitor patients' progress on the drugs, and if they warn patients about salt. It is VITALLY important that it be realised that weight gain resulting from these drugs is from sodium and water retention, so patients taking these drugs should be warned not to eat salt, or foods containing salt, while taking the medication. They should also be informed that any weight gained in this way can easily and swiftly be reduced by eating less salt/sodium, and they should be warned not to try to lose weight by eating less food or restricting calories because this will not help them to lose weight and is harmful.

If you gain weight suddenly and unexpectedly when you start to take prescribed medication that I have not mentioned on this page, it is highly likely that the weight gain is caused by the drug. You may like to consider whether you really need to take that drug, or whether the dose could be lowered. At any rate if you continue with the drug, try to reduce your salt intake in order to reduce the weight gain. Doctors seldom, if ever, warn about the drugs that cause salt sensitivity and the need very strictly to avoid salt and salty food while on the drugs, and many do not observe the drug protocols and very few properly monitor the patient's progress on the drugs. Obviously if doctors did do all these things, there would be no steroid victims, no patients with drug-induced obesity, etc. whereas there are many millions of them worldwide, victims of medical negligence and ignorance.

3. If, as a baby or small child, you ate salt and salty food, you were highly likely to have developed sensitivity to salt and you therefore became fat or overweight.

4. Pregnancy can cause fluid retention/salt sensitivity because of hormonal changes during pregnancy. It is important to avoid salt and salty food during pregnancy.

These are the main causes of obesity. Dieting/calorie counting makes obesity worse and should be avoided.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver damage and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk

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

Vulnerable groups

Sodium in foods and

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

and FAT RETENTION

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

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