A lack of compassion in elderly care

Posted: 02/03/2012

Failings in elderly care are once again in the news, with recent calls for a ‘Dignity Code’ to protect elderly patients. The Care Minister Paul Burstow, among others, has called for guidelines to be written into the contracts of NHS nurses and care workers to ensure that an agreed set of common standards for elderly care is followed.

Only last year, the Care Quality Commission published a report into the care of elderly patients at NHS hospitals which raised serious shortcomings, with three out of twelve hospitals reviewed failing to meet basic dignity and nutrition standards and three others raising general concerns.

Since this report, we have seen the creation of the Commission on Improving Dignity in Care of Older People, which aims to improve care standards for the elderly in care homes and hospitals across England.

The draft report from the Commission on Improving Dignity in Care for Older People, entitled ‘Delivering Dignity’ and released this week, offers a number of recommendations for improvement of elderly care, which we hope will go some way towards bringing this care consistently up to an acceptable standard.

Whilst it is positive that concerns about elderly care are being taken seriously, the on-going push for improvement demonstrates that there is a long way to go before good quality elderly care is uniformly provided throughout the NHS, and elderly patients are given the compassion they deserve.

We represent a number of clients across the country who have been subjected to degrading and poor care. We often see elderly patients failing to receive appropriate nutrition and hydration, being allowed to develop painful pressure sores and generally being treated without compassion, causing distress, not only for them, but also for their family.

Contact: Helen Hammond
Related services: Clinical negligence

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