2007
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2007 |
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2007 Sections
3 NHSs 2007
NHS trust 'not prepared' for outbreak Failures of basic standards for privacy and dignity for elderly Shameful neglect a case history English nurses offered worse deal than Scots and Welsh Brown cut budget for English hospitals, not Scots and Welsh English denied cancer drug given to Scots British Chancellor Brown cuts budget for English hospitals More than 15,000 a year face going blind
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15 August 2007 Times on line
Elderly people suffering abuse and neglect in residential care homesFrom August 15, 2007
Elderly people are suffering from abuse, neglect and malnutrition in hospitals and care homes, according to a report by peers and MPs. The report, published today by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, calls for changes in the law to safeguard the care of older people, and for a “complete change of culture” in health and care services. More than a fifth of care homes have been found to be failing basic standards for privacy and dignity, with the most vulnerable residents struggling to eat without proper help, being subjected to verbal and physical abuse or being left to lie in their urine or excrement. Two thirds of NHS hospital beds are occupied by the over65s, while the number of older people in the population is growing such that, by 2050, there will be twice as many Britons aged over 80 as there are today. Although the committee was told that some patients received excellent care, it said “there are serious concerns about poor treatment, neglect, abuse, discrimination and ill-considered discharge”. It also found evidence of “historic and embedded ageism” within healthcare services, causing a failure to “respect and protect the human rights of older people”. The report includes the example of an 80-year-old woman who was sexually assaulted by a fellow resident in a care home in 2004: “It was recorded in a log book but no action taken . . . It was only reported to the resident’s daughter in July 2005. She reported the matter to the police.” Another woman, who had difficulty feeding herself, “appeared to be slowly starving to death” because visitors who could have helped her were discouraged from staying during meal times. In other cases, bed sores were not treated because staff said “it was not their job”. The charity Age Concern estimates that 500,000 older people are subject to abuse at any one time, mostly in healthcare settings.+14 August 2007 BBC
Sue McMahon's father Wallace Beaumont went into hospital in Greater Manchester in February 2005 aged 87 with slight breathlessness. He had exhibited
similar symptoms in the past, which were related to his Parkinson's
disease, but they were always previously treated by his GP. While he was in hospital, Sue had to change her father's clothes for him, give him drinks and feed him.
His clothes were stolen, and on one occasion he was left with just a top on. She said: "I was contacted and went to A&E. The doctor told me he had given him some treatment for his bad heart. "I told him he did not have a bad heart, but the only response I got was shrugged shoulders.
"Still not knowing what was wrong, my father was sent to the medical assessment unit and I left him there about 10pm. Horrific decline "When I arrived the next day I was horrified - he was confused, couldn't walk and didn't know who I was. "He had wet his bed and night clothes and was crying. "I tried to get some answers but the staff changed and they didn't know his background. "I noticed the name on his tag and on the bed board were wrong and they continued even though I had told them they called him by the wrong name for days. "I was shocked and confused as to what had happened and asked to see the consultant. This took several days." Eventually Sue was told her father had experienced a succession of mini-strokes. But during several weeks in hospital this was the only information the family received. Not worth bothering "The staff thought he had come from an old people's home but he had been completely independent, a smart gentleman who always wore a blazer and tie," she said. "He had travelled abroad with family only months before and had until eight months before been the sole carer of our mother, who had Alzheimer's. "I went on the ward the next day to find him sat on a chair near the door with his coat, hat and clothes in a bag as if he was leaving, but the staff told me he got upset if he was asked to go back to his bed and they didn't have time to talk to him so they left him there all morning in his own faeces. +
Improved offer still leaves nurses in England worse off this yearBy Sarah Harrison Nurses in England will be paid at least £67 less than their counterparts in the other UK countries during 2007-08 if they accept the government’s latest pay offer.The proposed £38 contribution towards Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) annual fees will not offset the cost to individual nurses of staging the award (see table below).
While nurses in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are having the full 2.5 per cent backdated to April, nurses in England are being offered 1.5 per cent from April, 1 per cent from November and £38 towards their NMC fees. The devolved administrations in the other three countries are being urged by the UK government to pay their staff the £38 too. ‘Abominable’ Some nurses believe the offer is unacceptable. Bethann Siviter, a consultant nurse in caring for older people at South Birmingham Primary Care Trust, said: ‘The government is giving us £38 to shut us up. It is abominable. They know that they should be paying us what they are paying everyone else.’ Jeremy Benton, a critical care nurse and chair of the RCN’s South Oxfordshire branch, said: ‘This amount is derisory and assumes that nurses are incapable of using a calculator. If the government thinks that we are bluffing about industrial action, they have got another thing coming.’+ Full article http://www.nursing-standard.co.uk/thisweek/news2.asp
29 June 2007 Financial Times Brown cut budget for English hospitalsBy Chris Giles and Nicholas Timmins Published: June 29 2007 22:00 Last updated: June 29 2007 22:00 Gordon Brown quietly slashed by a third this year’s hospital building and equipment budget in one of his last acts as chancellor. Prompted by the tightness of the public finances, the new prime minister, who has placed the NHS as his “immediate priority”, cut the capital budget of the English NHS for 2007-08 from £6.2bn to £4.2bn. The move could delay the government’s hospital building and reconfiguration programme in England. However, Mr Brown avoided equivalent cuts to the Scottish and Welsh NHS budgets even though the funding formula for the UK nations suggests they should have shared the pain. That decision leaves him open to criticism that he favoured patients in his home country.+ Full article; http://www.ft.com/cms/s/f7a994d0-2677-11dc-8e18-000b5df10621.html 11 March 2007 Sunday Times
From March 11, 2007
LUNG cancer victims in England and Wales are to be denied a life-saving drug available on the National Health Service in Scotland — at least the eighth such decision in the past two years. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) last week rejected Tarceva, which is used to treat lung cancer, on the grounds it is not an effective use of NHS resources. The decision has led to complaints that Scots are getting preferential treatment — subsidised by taxpayers south of the border. Scotland receives extra funds under the Barnett formula and uses it to spend roughly 15% more per capita on health.
While Tarceva has been approved for use by the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC), it was rejected by Nice because it does not meet cost-benefit criteria. Cancer patients responded with anger to the decision, while Roche, the maker of the drug, said it would appeal. Freda Matthews, 58, a retired teacher from Leicester, was diagnosed with nonsmall cell lung cancer in 2002. The illness accounts for about 80% of lung cancers and kills about 30,000 people a year. Matthews had two rounds of chemotherapy before being prescribed Tarceva late last year. Now her access to the drug is in doubt. “Tarceva is keeping me alive, it is that simple,” she said. “I started Tarceva in December and when they did a scan six weeks later, the cancer had stopped growing.” Tarceva costs about £1,700 a month and comes in tablet form, while rival drugs are administered intravenously. It is one of a new wave of cancer drugs that target specific cells. Matthews said the alternative was “horrific” chemotherapy. “The only way you survive chemotherapy is by thinking that it will be worth it when you come out the other side. You don’t lose your hair with Tarceva.” In Scotland, Dorothy Moffatt, 56, a senior administrative officer at St Andrews university, faces no threat to her supply of Tarceva, which she began in July last year. “When the cancer came back the second time, I had spots on both my lungs and the chemotherapy didn’t work. Under the Scottish guidelines, I went on Tarceva,” she said. “I couldn’t believe that Nice had turned it down.” Several other drugs have also been rejected by Nice, but are being used in Scotland, including the cancer drugs Velcade, Alimta and Gliadel. + Full article; http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article1496854.ece
Brown cut budget for English hospitalsBy Chris Giles and Nicholas Timmins Gordon Brown quietly slashed by a third this year’s hospital building and equipment budget in one of his last acts as chancellor.
Prompted by the tightness of the public finances, the new prime minister, who has placed the NHS as his “immediate priority”, cut the capital budget of the English NHS for 2007-08 from £6.2bn to £4.2bn. The move could delay the government’s hospital building and reconfiguration programme in England. However, Mr Brown avoided equivalent cuts to the Scottish and Welsh NHS budgets even though the funding formula for the UK nations suggests they should have shared the pain. That decision leaves him open to criticism that he favoured patients in his home country. Those familiar with the situation said the cut to NHS capital spending implied a very tight settlement for the health department for the next three years in October’s Comprehensive Spending Review and indicated a slowdown in hospital building. The health department’s surrender of £2bn in capital is all the more remarkable because the NHS needs the money and it had not been given greater day-to-day money to spend.+Full Financial Times article http://www.ft.com/cms/s/f7a994d0-2677-11dc-8e18-000b5df10621.html 14
June 2007 Daily Express
NO JUSTICE IN THIS SYSTEM OF HEALTHCARE RATIONINGThursday June 14,2007 The withholding of two drugs which could help save the sight of thousands is an outrageous betrayal of the founding principles of the NHS. Treatment was supposed to be available free at the point of need for all those covered by this great national insurance scheme. There are not many medical priorities greater than preserving failing sight. There are not many people more entitled to consider themselves comprehensively covered than pensioners suffering from macular degeneration – most have been paying into the NHS pot for decades.Yet thanks to yesterday’s ruling, more than 15,000 a year face going blind. At the same time the NHS will continue spending a fortune on foreigners who have never paid a penny towards it. HIV-positive asylum seekers and tuberculosis sufferers from the Third World will get expensive drugs while elderly Britons are plunged into darkness. Unless, of course, they live in Scotland, where the drugs in question are freely available, thanks to large subsidies from the English taxpayer.+
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