Health becomes more and more an issue as a person becomes elderly. Caring for someone who health is deteriorating can be a full time task, so how do you go about living your live and helping?
This weekend, Peter Carter, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), said patients’ relatives need to do more to look after their loved ones in hospital. Clare Gerada at the Royal College of GPs agreed. This is what Carter said: “If you have a 24-bed ward and have got five nurses and everybody is having lunch at the same time and half the patients need feeding, it becomes difficult to get it all done,” Carter said. “You get this business of wards, very, very busy people, [patients] dying to go to the loo, elderly people wetting themselves, then they lie there feeling embarrassed — and it is about helping gran get out of bed and go to the loo”.
The NHS Confederation, Age UK and the Local Government Group have set up a new Commission to improve dignity in care provided to older patients in hospitals and care homes. The Commission is collecting evidence and intends to publish a draft report and recommendations for consultation at the end of 2011. The British Geriatrics Society has made the following submission to the Commission:
Geriatric Legions 