Frailty assessment absolutely fuming

Mirren that is shocking and quite frankly makes me feel very alone and unprotected by the NHS. At the age of 83 I am very lucky to have maintained good health so far, but as the years go by things are bound to change. It seems there is nobody to whom one can turn to for help really, unless in a dire emergency.

I found my frailty assessment online. I was shocked since I am fit and healthy and on no medication. It had been completed by the nurse practitioner whom I saw that day for a minor problem. It did make me wonder how I managed to telephone for an appointment and walk to the surgery. I think she must have just ticked all the boxes for an average person of my age. None of the questions and or answers had been discussed with me.

I had my yearly medication review last year by phone. It was someone I had never spoken to before and I could hardly understand her and had to keep asking her to repeat the questions. On checking my NHS App a few days later I saw she had put that my pulse was regular! I did query this with the surgery as, unless she could take it on the phone, there was no way she would know what my pulse was doing, and the nurse I spoke to said she had no idea either!

A few years back I was given a frailty assessment scoreon the day of receiving my flu jab, without a single question being asked. I only found it by accident when checking my blood test results on line. It made me sound ready to need a care home, when I was fit and well. I asked for it to be changed but was told it couldn't be done, but that nobody looked at the scores anyway!

I take medication for several purposes so access my online record every time I re-order. I am not so neurotic that I examine it regularly but now and again have had a flick through. Lots of things are absolute rubbish - tests I never had, appointments never had, and worse - diagnoses of things I do NOT suffer from and which have never even been investigated for. Some are several years old but I think I'd remember having a stroke 8 years ago on a data when DH and I were on a World Cruise, fit as fiddles.

I've never done anything about correcting the errors but it does bother me if I were to need to claim on a travel insurance policy and were told I had omitted to disclose an ailment that I never had!

Never heard frailty assessment?- can they do them without even telling you then??

But they do make a difference if, for example, your patient needs to claim Attendance Allowance, or continuing healthcare funding if they are going into a home. To make knowingly false or inaccurate statements in official documents is an offence

Things don't seem to have changed much in 50 years apart from technology. When pregnant with my last child we moved house and sadly GP surgery. I was allocated to have baby at town hospital but whenever I went there no one had ever heard of me. So I insisted I had baby at the maternity hospital that I had my other babies, in the next town. All was well until I turned up for a pre-birth meeting with consultant, and I had to hand in a letter from the GP. The letter was marked 'not to be read by Patient'; a red rag to a bull in my case, so I read it.
It stated that Mrs (me) did not want to go to the local hospital because she did not like 'black doctors'.

It was so untrue and disgusting that I was furious and refused to hand over the letter. Unfortunately I could not see a consultant without the letter so handed over. Unfortunately there were no printer in those days, so all evidence of the letter was lost.

Long story short, had baby, wrote to the medical council and complained and demand a change in doctors. This doctor was still working 10 years later. Thankfully though I was given a new GP who was lovely.

Sadly I lost all trust in GPs from that experience. I now question everything they say and write and challenge what I don't like. Became quite a rebel.

Interestingly my cousin in New Zealand was asked:
Can you do your own shopping
Can you do your own cleaning
Can you make your own meals
Can you do your own cooking
So that’s something to think about,I’m sticking to that list.

MRGUDER

Seajaye - thank you for that Link.
I checked my records recently and noticed some entries regarding my Diabetes saying I had not attened an appointment but also declined other teatments. I don't know who this person is but I haven't seen anyone about it.
I also supposedly had an email from a Doctor. No such thing.
I have written to the Practice Manager but still waiting after 5 days. At least your template will give them a kick up the backside to change things.

I had the same issue re my diabetes. My record stated that I had declined an invitation to an obesity clinic. I'm not and have never been obese! I questioned it and it was deleted. The diabetes nurse muttered something about most diabetes patients being obese, so it was added automatically! Eh?

Seems to me this Frailty Index is a tick list GPs presumably get paid to complete, whether or not its remotely accurate. Not ideal...

....should be an apostrophe in there of course...

My 88 year old friend was the opposite, she also had one of these telephone assessment with a stranger (to her) and was most annoyed it made her sound like a litttle frail old lady She has had some bad accidents last couple of years but you couldn’t meet more of a ‘doer’ and a ‘get on with it’ person She also made a complaint and made sure they changed all the information that was wrong which was quite a lot ….and then got back to planting her garden even if she does need a walker to rest on and can’t get down on her knees any more
She’s an inspiration

NotSpaghetti

I think usually people say these make them sound more frail!
How annoying though if they have got things wrong!

Is it possible that if in the future you need Attendance Allowance as you get older, you will not now get it?

Taichinan

Mirren that is shocking and quite frankly makes me feel very alone and unprotected by the NHS. At the age of 83 I am very lucky to have maintained good health so far, but as the years go by things are bound to change. It seems there is nobody to whom one can turn to for help really, unless in a dire emergency.

It is actually quite astonishing to ask anyone questions about their health in the same way they would do market research.

To ask the elderly health questions on the pone is even worse. In fact, I would put it in the category of ''Elder Abuse''.

I have not experienced this, probably because I have been on DLA 30 years, and first signed on at this practice in 1968 so they know me inside out and back to front.

If a stranger rang me, I would say I only speak to strangers face to face.

I wonder if my ''guardian phone'' puts them off?

Not only could all this cause problems for individuals, it also gives inaccurate information about the state of the nation's health and could impact decisions. For example, when decisions are made about whether more (or less) money needs allocating to "frail" patients nationally, the figures won't be accurate - the same for other conditions.

We rely on "big data" so much, but of it's nonsense. there's no point in collecting it.

"if" not "of"

queenofsaanich69

Interestingly my cousin in New Zealand was asked:
Can you do your own shopping
Can you do your own cleaning
Can you make your own meals
Can you do your own cooking
So that’s something to think about,I’m sticking to that list.

That is interesting. What would they say if someone answered 'no' to that lot?

It brings to mind what I know about the 'care' offered by social workers in UK.

I know someone who was told he needed to be pulled out of bed in the morning, walked to the bathroom, face washed while on the loo, quick shave, marched into the kitchen, given a cup of tea, then left: 15 minutes.

How can you leave an elderly person like that, and not care whether he eats or not, or if the house isn't cleaned, so long as he is yanked out of bed early in the morning?

It seems they only do 'personal care'. Do they 'need it' more than help with the housework, meals, garden, and so on? Social services, apparently, do not provide cleaners, only assistant care workers, and that sparsely.

shysal

A few years back I was given a frailty assessment scoreon the day of receiving my flu jab, without a single question being asked. I only found it by accident when checking my blood test results on line. It made me sound ready to need a care home, when I was fit and well. I asked for it to be changed but was told it couldn't be done, but that nobody looked at the scores anyway!

Do you own your own house?

crazyH

What is a Frailty Assessment ? Never heard of it …

I've never heard of it either. But surely a good GP would - first of all - assess the way you walk into their consulting room. I spoke to one recently and he said you can tell more about a person's general strength etc from that than almost anything they're prepared to tell you.

They don’t walk in a surgery Paperbackwriter it’s a telephone assessment

shysal

A few years back I was given a frailty assessment scoreon the day of receiving my flu jab, without a single question being asked. I only found it by accident when checking my blood test results on line. It made me sound ready to need a care home, when I was fit and well. I asked for it to be changed but was told it couldn't be done, but that nobody looked at the scores anyway!

I've been looking into this. Apparently there's a "tool" called the electronic frailty index. When you go to your GP because you've had a fall or had blood pressure test, you're given a computer generated code. The "tool" adds up all these codes and calculates whether you're "frail".

This is from NHS Scotland, but I think it would be the same for NHS England and Wales:

ihub.scot/media/5948/e-frailty-index-brief-guide.pdf

So you'll be given a score for the conditions on that list and your degree of frailty would be calculated. Other documents do say that frailty should be confirmed by further tests.

This is what the BMA has to say:

www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/gp-practices/gp-service-provision/identification-and-management-of-patients-with-frailty

This post fills me with trepidation about the future. I care for my husband alone but what happens when/if I cannot?

Can I ask what a frailty assessment is for?
Is it for a disability benefit or a health check up.Ive never heard of this.Thanks.