Older people are being “written off” by the NHS and unnecessarily sent to nursing homes.
Older people are being “written off” by the NHS and unnecessarily sent to nursing homes where they receive health care that is “probably worse than in prison”, a leading government health adviser has admitted.
Prof David Oliver, the Department of Health’s key adviser on the elderly, said that the NHS was “failing to do basic things for older people”.
He warned there was “endemic evidence of discriminatory attitudes from [NHS] staff”, which was leading to older people “systematically” getting a worse deal in hospitals across England than younger patients.
In evidence to a House of Lords Committee, Prof Oliver, the Department of Health’s clinical director for older people services, said that major change was needed.
Hospitals had failed to adapt to cope with people living longer, and while the NHS had enjoyed “fantastic success” at treating killer diseases, it was “palpably failing” to treat and care for those with long-term conditions, he said.
A Scottish Borders patient suffered seizures after being denied medication for five days because the ward had run out.
In another NHS Borders case, a stillborn baby was wrongly recorded as being alive and the parents sent a first birthday card a year later by the Child Smile oral health initiative. The report said the error was “disturbing” for the family.
NHS Ayrshire and Arran reported the diagnosis of a lung tumour was delayed until after it was no longer operable, though it was present in an earlier scan.
Another case in the area saw doctors remove a healthy organ from a patient after a GP did not forward scan results.
Alex Neil, the Health Minister, said boards should learn from “adverse events” to improve patient safety.英国政府一位健康顾问近日承认，英国国家医疗服务体系(NHS)已经“抛弃了”老年人，毫无必要地把他们送到养老院，但老年人在养老院中所受到的医疗保健服务“可能比在监狱还糟糕”。
英国卫生部老年问题首席顾问、大卫-奥利弗教授说，NHS“没能保证对老年人的最基本服务”。
他提醒说，“有证据表明，某些地区的NHS工作人员对老年人存在歧视”，导致英格兰地区的老年人比年轻病人在医院的待遇“成体系地”差得多。
奥利弗教授也是英国卫生部老年服务临床主管。他还告诉英国上议院委员会，需要采取措施改变这一状况。
他说，医院没能进行调整，应对人口老龄化。尽管NHS在治疗致命疾病方面取得了“巨大的成就”，但“明显没能”治疗和照顾那些慢性病患者。
由于病房人满为患，苏格兰鲍德斯医院拒绝为一名癫痫病人进行药物治疗长达五天之久。
来看看NHS体系下鲍德斯医院的另一个例子。一名死婴错误地被医院登记为活着，孩子一岁生辰时，“微笑幼儿”口腔健康机构还给它的父母寄去了一张周岁生日卡片。报道称，这一错误给这个家庭带来了困扰。
英国埃尔郡和阿伦岛的NHS体系曾报告说，有位肺部肿瘤患者的诊断做出的太迟，以至于已无法进行手术，而在早期扫描中就已经可以看出了。
在另一起案例中，由于一名普通开业医生没有转寄扫描结果，导致医生摘除了一位病人的健康器官。
英国卫生大臣亚历克斯-尼尔说，管理者应从“不良事件”中吸取教训，改善病人的安全问题。
Vocabulary:
endemic: 某地特有的;(尤指疾病)地方性的;风土的
forward: (按新地址)转寄;发送
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