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Nursing homes are increasingly leaving residents with dementia on their own to the hospital. Why is that?

My mother Madge, 90 mild vascular dementia - she knows that the Prime Minister, but can not remember what I had for lunch - had many health problems and live in dormitories. Most have gone unnoticed until I noticed and alerted staff after the doctor was called, or more generally, he went straight to A & E. His health problems have spread infections of acute urinary tract undetected decline in vascular dementia "in the episode," the equivalent of a small race - it was me who had noticed his speech was pasty and deterioration non-caregivers motor

The four care homes Madge has lived since 2005, all residents have sent an ambulance to the hospital, which means that people with dementia or severe memory problems - 80% all care home residents, according to a study by the Alzheimer Society - are confused about why they are there, no one to advocate for them, have a cup of tea or take them to the bathroom. Waiting in A & E can be up to five hours a very long time for people to be alone in a stressful environment, no matter for someone with dementia.

In January, my mother was sent from his account to A & E with a sore knee. Your nursing home called to say an ambulance was on the way, which is code for "It would be nice if I could go with it." As always, I left work and went to A & E to find my mother alone and very anxious because the caregivers had been sent without his glasses. She was diagnosed with gout, and had the opportunity to tell the doctor the story of this painful condition. The next day, the mother caregivers rang to tell me he was still in severe pain and back to A & E, but this time they sent not only without glasses, but without their hearing aids or dentures. Sending a 90-year-old with dementia in the hospital is the only one, in my opinion, inhuman, but to send them things they have to see, hear, speak and eat negligence bordering abuse.

residents and Parents Association also refers, as some staff home care. R & RA was recently contacted by a care home whistleblowers, who saw an elderly man with dementia go to the hospital just a piece of paper in his hand "explain" why he had to see a doctor. He has also received reports of elderly residents confused found wandering the corridors of the hospital not knowing why they were there. R and RA chair Judy Downey said: "They have no identity to indicate that they are, there is a list of drugs or what might be allergic, and had to go without glasses or hearing aids staff is very common. "

he added. "People are in nursing homes because they need personal care and care for them when they go to the hospital is an intrinsic part of the duty of care of people with dementia who wondered if the pain can not say no, if she is not having pain at that time, and then be in agony 10 minutes later - if there is no one to advocate for them, their long wait in A & E is often unsuccessful "

Of Kelly, Executive Director of the National Care Forum believes the problem is growing because nursing homes do not have enough staff to accompany residents to the hospital. "It is inappropriate and unsuitable to send to a person with dementia only hospital, but it is a dilemma that keeps coming up the. A serious problem and ideally, households have enough staff so that you can lose a caregiver for a few hours. This should be a minimum requirement. "

monitoring the health and social care, the Commission on Quality of Care (CQC), which last month published a survey on how nursing homes are not testing and treatment of health problems of residents and fail dementia, but did not pick up residents who "dumped" in the hospital - says the answer is to keep the residents of nursing homes for the elderly: A & E unless it is absolutely necessary to call the service routine GP in the first instance. Special conditions lead Alan Rosenbach said: "The question is how to manage the needs of people in care homes - no one should go to the emergency room with a urinary tract infection A & E is a bad place, intimidating for anyone .. that is, more than four hours in A & E only for an elderly person with dementia is irrelevant and is not acceptable, "he adds:" We will use the latest observations we made in the care of residents of the home care dementia as the basis for the beginning of a conversation between nursing homes and hospitals on the subject "

Age UK charity says that many older people are admitted to hospital nursing home purely because there is a lack of access to the health of the community. "If these improved services and care are delivered at the right time, while many older people do not have to be admitted to the hospital at all," said Michelle Mitchell, Age UK CEO. "There should be better training and personal support home care, urgent improvements in the administration of medications, and closer links with the GP and other primary care services. Through better communication between and health care organizations and social care system adequately funded many of these admissions could be avoided. "

The Department of Health said that as part of this challenge is to work with the health sector to ensure the provision of high quality personalized services. "No excuses for failures in standards of care, or the failure to treat people with kindness, respect and dignity. Expect providers and commissioners to meet high standards at all times and CQC to take firm action where services are below standard, "said a spokesman for DH.

Earlier this month, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has become the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence and began a new system of program major lines of work and high quality standards for the industry welfare. Part of this program includes the publication of quality standards for social services to help support people with dementia to live well. The launch of these rules, last week, Gillian Leng, director of health and social care in Nice, said: "It will allow individual health care professionals, nursing home care and other social services ensure that people with dementia have a better quality of life, a postitive experience for their care and are protected against preventable harm. "


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