Scandal of the starving elderly (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Scandal of the starving elderly

11:45am Monday 15th March 2010 in

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A shocking end-of-year report from the Government’s Nutrition Action Plan Delivery Board revealed that 239 patients in English hospitals had died from malnutrition.

Overall since 1997, 2,656 have died from malnutrition in hospitals and care homes.

Health campaigners have long complained that elderly patients in particular are often treated as second-class citizens on wards, and that often meals are placed out of reach of incapacitated patients or get taken away before they have time to finish their meal.

This report should have been published last summer and it is tragic to think that many more lives might have been saved if they have not deliberately delayed publishing it because of the embarrassment it causes them.

Is it any wonder elderly people fear having to go into hospital?

Doctors and nurses need to be freed from a culture of box-ticking and bureaucracy so that every patient can receive the care and attention they need.

Coun DAVID PEARSON, St Michael’s Court, Blackburn.