elderly in hospital

I don't know nannysgetpaid if care is better for those who have visitors. But I think it is true that not having visitors contributes to a slower recovery and even deterioration for the elderly. I know there are people who have no one to visit them but I also think that there are many who hand over their relatives and expect them to be looked after. And maybe if we want our care services to improve we should begin by showing more concern ourselves.

Oh Hattie How awful for you. My DH has been admitted to hospital 4 times in last 18 months... My best advice is "don't leave their side"

I was 68 and suffered with kidney stones. I was admitted to Hospital knowing I was extremely ill. I was put in a bed late at night and left there for two days without seeing a doctor, despite my weak requests to see one - you are on the list, I was repeatedly told. When I eventually pleaded with a doctor visiting another patient, he listened to me and immediately sent me for a scan. It turned out that a large stone could not pass naturally and prevented everything else passing and poison was rapidly building up. This was urgently drained and I felt then like a new woman but I had to have a "bag" for the next week which both day staff and night staff were reluctant to empty. Indeed on one occasion the Night nurse told me to follow her to the sluice room and empty it myself ! The Doctor told me that had the procedure not have been done when it was "you would probably have died". When I felt strong enough to confront the Ward Manager, she said that these young doctors often say things they don't mean. A likely tale. The bathrooms were disgusting and not cleaned for a whole weekend. We knew this to be so because the same filth remained all that time but when we complained the Nurse denied that this was possible because "My friend Pat (the cleaning Supervisor) would never allow that to happen". The big problem was that the Sister in Charge, the Nurses and the Cleaners were all buddy buddy and there was no demarcation line between them. One particularly hateful Nurse - Gloria - was almost sadistic and I discovered the only way to handle her was to be sickeningly flattering and thanking her profusely for the little she was prepared to do. I could go on ... You will be wondering why I chose not to put in a formal complaint. I did think long and hard about it, but knowing that the possibility existed that the condition could recur and I could be put there again, I felt the risk of having "my card marked" was too great and I think this is why they get away with such a lot. Shortly afterwards I went in to have remaining small stones removed and was adamant that I would not go into the same Ward. I think the Consultant knew why, and the one I was in was different again. I will never forget the awful experience and my daughter and son are positive that should they have to be vigilant in the future, they will not allow such treatment to be meted out, especially as I am now 72.

Sorry spelling error, read thing not think!

So sorry westieyaya to read of your poor husband's hospital care. It seems to be the same news all the time, and really scary for us all for the future.
I do hope you will write to the Chief Executive of the hospital concerned as they have to look into the matter and report back.
Speaking as a retired NHS employee of many years, I know that this is a necessary think to do , get it in print . Send copies to the Consultant and Ward as well. Good luck.

My 85 yr old husband recently had to spend a week in hospital. He is normally a kind and gentle, fully compus mentus man. He found the constant use of night time lighting very disturbing but when in combination with an unnnecessary drug increase he became very agitated. The night time nurses reacted by labelling this ill man as aggressive and calling security to restrain him. The first I heard about this was when the hospital called our son at 7.30am. We all visited later and found him quite calm but very angry. He had been refused a phone during the day to call me, the doctors on duty would not allow him to self discharge and when I requested a private room so that he wouldn't be so disturbed, was told that the manager dealing with these didn't work at weekends.
I spent much of the evening visiting time chasing up the ward sister and her team who apparently considered that this time constituted their break. Unsurprisingly my husband has now vowed never to return to hospital and would prefer to be treated at home.
This is a very sad state for the NHS to be in

What worries me about your post trisher is that you seem to be saying that the care improves when the relatives are there on a regular basis. I agree that contribution from relatives to a patients recovery is unmeasurable but many of these people do not have (for many reasons) visitors. Are we to expect lesser care for those patients because of it?

Can I add a voice of dissent here. My mother has had excellent care in a number of hospitals. What does shock me is the ability of relatives to dump the elderly in hospital wards and not visit (or maybe only once a week for 5 minutes). No sometimes I know it isn't easy (and I have done 100 mile journeys and taken holidays and stayed weekends away from home to make visits) but the benefits of visiting, both for the patient and the carers, are incredible. You provide a link with the outside world, a welcome break from routine, can help with small tasks and show the nursing staff that the patient is not just an old person, but a valued member of someone's family. So your contribution to your relatives care cannot be underestimated. Build relationships with the staff, spend as much time as you can visiting, and you may find, not only that the care improves, but the patient recovers more rapidly.

I did some agency nursing in a care home a few years ago. All of the carers there were wonderful, then they brought in NVQs and a lot of them left and went to work at the local supermarket. They could not cope with the written work to explain how they did what they had been doing for years. Such a waste.

A few years ago I had a friend who had spent years looking after handicapped and elderly people in her own home - she was all the things one would wish: caring, patient, efficient. When her daughter started school she decided to resume the nursing training she had had to give up earlier. It was only her determination that kept her going, as she struggled with the essays she had to write, with all the references and quotations presented correctly and word-processed to exact specifications.
Of course nurses need more advanced training for modern medicine, but it seems that much of it is designed to prove the academic rigour of the course, rather than to prepare students for relevant skills.
So many potentially good nurses must be put off by this approach. Perhaps if we revised our nurse training, we would not need to be so dependant on nurses trained by other countries.

No.2 son hurt his ankle last night playing football - an X-ray and 4 hours of pain later and still no radiologist had managed to review the results so he was sent home in a temporary cast with pain-killers on the understanding that he would be telephoned with the result. Not!

I had a massive head injury last year and was sent home 'in the clear' 8 weeks of headaches later, I had another fall from my horse and heyho someone noticed that my brain had been bleeding for some considerable time!

It's not only old people sadly but the sickest thing about our health service is our health service itself - at least we have a voice, the awful thing about the elderly and other more vulnerable people is that no-one notices and they can't say.

Phone the hospital and ask to speak to the Patient Liaison Officer.

My sister was admitted to hospital numerous times with gall stones never got treatment just stayed a day or 2 till the symptoms calmed down and was sent home. Once this was for about 3 hours she had to back On the 4th or 5th admission they kept telling her that she would be given treatment and this happened 3 days in a row. On Friday they suggested she went home for the weekend and came back on Monday. By this time I was fuming, she is self employed, so no work no pay, which added to her problems. I became the bossy big sister and told her no way was she to vacate that bed I phoned the Patient Liaison Officer and spoke to him, politely explained how many times she had been admitted and sent home over a matter of only a few weeks. I also told him that she was not vacating the bed over the weekend (1) she would probably be re-admitted yet again very shortly, or (2) there would be no bed for her on the Monday. This really sped things up. They arranged for her to go a neighbouring hospital for scans and tests and carried out the surgery.

I have also had to do similar for my Mother who was being "messed about" by the NHS, (will not bore you with the story) but even just asking to be transferred to the Patient Liaison Officer made things move.

I've just remembered - huh - when we complained about my Aunt's lack of care and protection, the first response was that the Modern Matron couldn't discuss her case, or that of the other poor old soul, without their permission because of violating the Data Protection Act - oh such an easy get out especially when so many elderly people in hospital are confused and frightened and cannot give such permission. So, in fact our system has given the rotten apples protection from being complained about by anyone concerned for their welfare.

I have been horrified by these stories, like the rest of you. We must start work on this:

Write to our MPs, demanding that the letter is sent to Andrew Lansley (but we must ALL do it)

Campaign for an independent body to monitor care of the elderly; as Barrowgran and Harrigran say, all prisons have an Internal Monitoring Board via which inmates can voice their concerns. The IMB is taken very seriously. Surely elderly patients deserve this sort of advocacy - people speaking for them when they can't speak for themselves. We must ALL do it.

Contact our own AgeUK, but also the national HQ so they can quote numbers

Share our stories.

I nursed my mother at home and she died holding my hand. It was good.

I spent two months visiting my son in hospital every afternoon to make sure that they were doing no more harm than they had already done (another thread). An elderly lady who was obviously confused came into the room and got into the empty bed next to him. When after 10 minutes nobody had come looking for her I took her down to the nurses station and explained. They showed no concern and said that she often wandered off, took her back to her room and left her. The same thing happened a couple of days later. I told her daughter what had happened and she complained. She was told that it was due to a shortage of staff but the nurse in charge of her only had four patients to look after. I am so glad that I am no longer nursing. I couldn't stand it.

My Aunt who is now 93 was in a Kent hospital and dosed up on diamorph. Whilst in a hallucinatory state she walked out, past the nurses station, down a main road into town where she got on a bus. She was inadequately clothed obviously and had no money. The bus driver however took her on board and dropped her where she wanted to be - it so happened to be the wrong side of a dual carriageway which she then crossed to get to her home. She rang me, some 100 miles away. I rang the hospital who sent people out to retrieve her. Also when visiting, we passed the same poor old lady, completely naked and curled in a ball. No nurse went near her; no nurse tried to cover her or draw the curtains around. Of course I complained madly but got all sorts of platitudes back. For sure that hospital has now closed but the staff have simply transferred to another and no doubt transferred their attitudes too.

Why spend yet more money on inquiries and commissions when everyone knows that the elderly are badly treated because they don't/can't fight back when they are so vulnerable - perfect neglect and bullying territory. Complaints should not be handled 'in-house' and penalties for bad treatment should be huge.

We have a NHS here in Australia, and my husband had a knee replacement at our public hospital. The medical procedure was excellent, but some nursing care was appalling, with his other existing medical conditions being ignored, resulting in a great deal of harm.

I wrote a letter to the hospital authorities, listing the complaints calmly, and suggesting action to ensure no other patient suffers like he did.

They wrote back immediately, apologised, and listed the remedial action they were taking. This included sending the nurse who caused most of it for some re-training in the care of older patients, and post-operative patients.

The next time he went into hospital for the other knee to be done, he was treated wonderfully.

It was hard doing the letter, it really upset us both because it brought it all to the fore, but we felt better for it, and it worked.

Good to let off steam, the frustrations such as these mentioned can make you fell quite ill from the stress.

I want to say how awful the system is in NHS geriatric Hospitals and homes for the elderly. 3 yrs ago my father was sent to a geriatric NHS hospital after falling and being admitted to hospital. He was there for 3 months before being diagnosed with the onset of dementia. I live in Ireland and I spent all that time in UK with my son and his wife trying to find out what was going on.
He caught 3 infections whilst in there care, being quite healthy before this episode. I was told there was nothing wrong with him so I asked why He was incontinent and they told me they did not know!! I pushed on this and eventually they sent him for CT scan and he was diagnosed with the onset of dementia. Was this due to financial cost that he never had this at the beginning??
I arranged for him to go into a Care/Nursing home near my son, after good care for 1 yr the Manager left and an incompetent one was put in place. On one of my visits over I found him undressed and they could not find any clothes for him. Also his TV was on showing a snowy picture! I was livid and sought out the Manager who did not introduce herself or take me into her office.I had to stand in a hallway discussing my father. There were other issues I raised such as Missing items, it took a further30 mins for his clothes to turn up from the Laundry room. He had plenty.
I informed her I was going to make a complaint to Social Services., which I did and an investigation began. I never received an apology from the Care home over this matter.
Beginning of last year I asked NHS for extra care as I felt he needed it. It took most of last year to arrange this between Social services, the Care/Nursing home and NHS. You can imagine how frustrated and upset I was not living there and trying to sort it out from another country. Every time I visited him Social services were not able to see me. When they wanted to see me I was back in Ireland! In December it all changed as they finally agreed and he now has the care he should have had from the beginning of going into the home.
So that is my dealings with authority of those in charge of the elderly.
Sorry this is so long, have wanted to get it off my chest for a long time.

and complain whenever such things happen, knowing that, despite the attitude of the hospital staff - you are not alone

Some terrible stories. You all must keep this thread going and somehow get the attention of politicions as has happened previously on mumsnet.

My mother (88) had tests last week and they found she has esophageal cancer. For the first five days she was in a smaller hospital near her house which has been left empty while she has been staying for the last few weeks with my eldest sister. She was taken to the larger hospital (which I dislike) for radiation. Her doctor said she is too frail to have surgery. My elder sister who was with her the whole time (they were at the hospital for most of the day) and just left my mother for about fifteen minutes to get some food. The doctor then told mum that she has cancer. He could have waited until my mother had some family with her, but he decided it was best to tell a frail 88 year old while she was on her own.

The next day my sister drove back to her home, about three hours away to pick up more clothes as she had thought they would only be in the city for one day of tests. I went to visit with my youngest daughter who lives 500ks away and only had that day to see her grandmother. We arrived at the hospital and my mother wasn't there. They had decided to take her again by ambulance to the larger hospital to check again whether she should have surgery. None of us knew about this, we expected her to be there. The staff at the smaller hospital said they didn't understand why they had to do more tests for surgery when they had decided on radiation. While my mother was there someone decided it was a good time to tell her that she has three months to live.

We are putting in a complaint!!!!

Although there are no more comments for a while, having just joined you all and read everyones comments, I can only endorse what is being said and for me gkal sums it up. I too trained as an SRN in the 1960's and it certainly was strict and I am appalled at what I have seen as 'care' these days.

Although my dear Mum was very well cared for aged 90 in her final months, I used to visit , in a nice residential home, an elderly lady 97, who had no family. She was a delight, a very senior highly trained nurse in her time. When she was admitted to the local hospital for an infection she was treated appalling by the nurses, and she would also comment to me what poor care they gave to stroke patients in nearby beds! Even at that great age she could not believe what she saw.

With all the TV programmes and publicity being given I think we must keep on about such an emotive subject which will affect us and our nearest and dearest in the future.

My DMIL was a sister in St Georges and when stuck in hospital would love to sort them out. Even a day after being rushed in, unconscious, and not quite sure why she was there: "Why do I feel I need to sort these girls out Jess?"
Nursing has changed so much hasn't it. Women these days would not put up with the regimented management of the 1950s. But this seems to have been replaced by non-managment in some wards.