As evidence accumulates that elderly people suffer worse treatment than the young on the NHS, writes Martin Beckford, the Government and health watchdogs have devised a series of plans to tackle the problem. They range from making age discrimination illegal to carrying out spot checks on hospital geriatric wards.
However it has been claimed that the problem is down to the culture in the health service and the attitude of staff, and that new laws and more rigorous checks may only increase bureaucracy rather than improving care.
Next April, a provision of Labour’s Equality Act will come into force outlawing age discrimination in the provision of health services.
Meanwhile the Care Quality Commission, the (so called) super-regulator for health and social care, is publishing the results of 100 unannounced inspections it is carrying out into the standards of dignity and nutrition provided to the elderly on NHS wards. Trusts failing legal requirements can face fines or even having wards closed down.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council, which carries out disciplinary hearings for the caring professions, has started looking into more than 150 new cases over the past few months following media investigations into neglect of the elderly and vulnerable.
If problems in the NHS require legislation making age discrimination illegal ... if hospitals need to be frightened into providing adequate basic care for elderly patients by spot checks on their geriatric wards (for which we have to rely on the CQC, which is itself failing) ... if we need the media in order to expose these problems, what does this say about the culture in those hospitals among the nursing staff, and the management who don't grip it and reform it?
The NHS remains pretty impregnable in its fortress.
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