Numerous reports and inquiries have revealed serious failings in the National Health Service. From the Bristol heart babies to Mid Staffordshire, fundamental problems with care have been exposed. But what Channel 4 News can now reveal is previously unpublished data which shows just how badly our hospital mortality rates compare with other countries. And never more so than for the elderly. 
A UK health and social care watchdog has warned that the country’s healthcare system is on the brink of collapse, and that many patients – particularly the elderly – are going to hospital for emergencies when they should have been seen much earlier.
Another lonely death. Another preventable death. Another reason why you must challenge your most deeply held beliefs. Last week's report into the case of Thomas Rogers, the 74-year-old grandfather who bled to death after lying undiagnosed on a trolley in an accident and emergency ward at Whipps Cross Hospital for nine hours, is shocking. What is even more shocking is that it is hardly unusual. Equally awful stories worm their way out past NHS obstruction every week. And nothing changes.
Narrative, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
A 95-year-old war hero who survived being shot down by Nazis may have to sell his home to cover his medical costs after apparently ‘surviving too long’. Bob Frost, from Sandwich, Kent, had hoped to pass the £300,000 property to his children but this may no longer be possible after his NHS funding was withdrawn when he recovered from an illness...
‘The NHS said I’d survived too long and they were stopping my funding. I don’t have a massive retirement plan. All my life I tried to buy a house so I’d have something to pass on to my children. But now they’re taking it away.’
Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Character, Degeneracy, Brilliance, Socialism, Healthcare
NHS doctors are prematurely ending the lives of thousands of elderly hospital patients because they are difficult to manage or to free up beds, a senior consultant claimed yesterday.
Professor Patrick Pullicino said doctors had turned the use of a controversial ‘death pathway’ into the equivalent of euthanasia of the elderly. He claimed there was often a lack of clear evidence for initiating the Liverpool Care Pathway, a method of looking after terminally ill patients that is used in hospitals across the country.
Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare
Pensioners with cancer are being written off as too old to treat, campaigners said yesterday. They cited figures showing survival rates for British patients aged 75 and over are among the worst in Europe. Young lung cancer sufferers are only 10 per cent more likely to die within five years than their continental counterparts. But pensioners with the disease have 44 per cent less chance of survival. The figure for stomach cancer – at 45 per cent – is even worse.
Environmentalist, Warming, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Funny, Socialism, Healthcare
An elderly woman was ordered to find a new GP because the “carbon footprint” of her two-mile round trips to the surgery where she had been treated for 30 years was too large.
Incompetence, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
In a letter addressed to medical directors in the Strategic Health Authorities (SHA), Keogh emphasised the “unacceptable” examples of sending the elderly and vulnerable home late at night, stressing that their practices “need to be addressed urgently”.
Ann Clwyd broke down as she spoke about the final moments of Owen Roberts, who contracted pneumonia after being admitted. They had been married nearly 50 years. She said her husband was squashed against the side of his bed, his lips dry, and cold from a fan that had been turned on for a patient in an adjacent bay. A light had been flicked on in the four-bed ward and someone shouted out “anybody for breakfast?” just moments before he died., Ms Clwyd said. She painted a picture of nurses who treated her husband with “coldness, resentment, indifference and even contempt” – echoing the words of the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt last week. Ms Clwyd said she had had “nightmares” about what happened, adding: “I really do feel he died from people who didn’t care.”
Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare
Some of the horror stories are almost too much to bear. Try this for example: “An elderly, confused patient in her pyjamas was wheeled by a porter from her treatment to the entrance door, and left there. She was waiting for transport but obviously in dire need of care. She wore an incontinence pad that was saturated and the chair was also saturated with urine. She would get up and walk for a bit and then go back to the chair. No one spoke to her or tried to help her. She was just ignored. Was no one responsible for her care?“
Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare
The consequences of failing to meet these challenges are clear. The unnecessary pain, indignity and distress suffered by older patients in NHS facilities have been hauntingly documented by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman and the inquiry into care at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. The independent public inquiry, chaired by Robert Francis QC, found that for many the most basic elements of healthcare were neglected and staff displayed ‘insufficient care for patients’ dignity with some left in degrading conditions and others inadequately dressed’. This inadequacy resulted in ‘horrific experiences that will haunt them and their loved ones for the rest of their lives’.
Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare
When Kenneth Warden was diagnosed with terminal bladder cancer, his hospital consultant sent him home to die, ruling that at 78 he was too old to treat. Even the palliative surgery or chemotherapy that could have eased his distressing symptoms were declared off-limits because of his age... Sadly, Kenneth’s story is symptomatic of a dreadful truth. According to shocking new research by Macmillan Cancer Support, every year many thousands of older people are routinely denied life-saving NHS treatments because their doctors write them off as too old to treat.
Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare
Elderly women are being denied life-saving breast cancer surgery that is routinely given to younger patients, alarming research reveals. Some doctors look at a patient’s age in their notes – and decide on a treatment plan before they have even met them, experts warn. Their study, which provides evidence of ageism in the Health Service, found that 90 per cent of breast cancer patients aged 30-50 are offered surgery to remove tumours, compared with 70 per cent of those in their seventies.
Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare
Elderly women are being denied life-saving breast cancer surgery that is routinely given to younger patients, alarming research reveals. Some doctors look at a patient’s age in their notes – and decide on a treatment plan before they have even met them, experts warn. Their study, which provides evidence of ageism in the Health Service, found that 90 per cent of breast cancer patients aged 30-50 are offered surgery to remove tumours, compared with 70 per cent of those in their seventies. Even women in their 50s are less likely than younger patients to have an operation.
Government, Incompetence, Socialism, Healthcare
Health service executives and residential home managers are failing to ensure that elderly patients are seen by GPs, receive the therapy, out-of-hours care and specialist dementia treatments that they need, it said. Doctors often simply tell staff that residents should go to straight to hospital, while some state-funded medics are reluctant to help privately-run care homes for ideological reasons, the report suggested. The British Geriatrics Society, which conducted the inquiry, condemned the “betrayal” of elderly residents by an NHS that is “ageist” and treats patients in care homes as a “low priority”.