Nhs May Collapse Unless Elderly Give Up Hospital Beds – Health Minister

[cashinmattress]

link

Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) will collapse unless action is taken to improve care for elderly patients outside of hospitals to free up much needed beds for other inpatients, Health Minister Norman Lamb has warned.

Lamb said that the NHS is under huge pressure from an ageing population, with the number of elderly patients suffering chronic and complex health problems growing and that tackling it would be “the challenge of the 21st century.”

“Accident and Emergency [A&E] units are under pressure, ambulances are carrying more patients than they should, significant numbers of people are in hospital who should be cared for elsewhere. The system is becoming dysfunctional and we need to do something about it,” Lamb told the Telegraph.

While one of Britain’s most senior A&E doctors, Dr. Cliff Mann, from the College of Emergency Medicine, said that they had begun to feel like “war zones,” and that many doctors were turning their backs on emergency medicine.

The current funding system where hospitals have a financial incentive to hang on to patients is at the heart of the problem and currently there is no reward for a hospital to get patients to leave.

In an attempt to address the issue, minsters will announce Tuesday plans to co-ordinate NHS services and councils to make sure than more is done to organize home-help for elderly patients or make basic adaptations to their home so that they can return there rather than languishing in hospitals.

A series of pilot schemes will be set up to test more joined up ways for health and social care providers to work together. The plan is that the schemes will be expanded to every part of the country by 2015.

“At the moment the system is horribly fragmented and that means bad care – distress, crises occurring that could be avoided, massive disruption to people’s lives. If we carry on as we are the system will collapse,” said Lamb.

Hospital regulators have also announced a review of the NHS funding system to encourage hospitals to release patients earlier.

Other plans which could be implemented under the review include giving elderly patients their own personal NHS worker who would manage all their care needs including home help and physiotherapy, as well as medical treatment.

While the system of paying doctors for completing specific activities will also be overhauled so that they are only rewarded for actual improvements in a patient’s health.

Lamb’s announcement comes just days after David Prior, the head of the UK’s Care Quality Commission (CQC), the leading UK health watchdog, said that acute beds for the elderly must be closed and that admissions through A&E are out of control.

Robert Francis QC, who conducted the review into failings at the Mid-Staffordshire NHS trust, which led to the deaths of 1,200 people between 2005 and 2009, told the Nursing Times that while doctors and hospital managers understood that serious changes need to be made, certain members of the nursing profession were not taking the problem seriously enough.

A very prescient piece ca. 2007 from overseas, on boomers and liabilities. Just replace US/America with UK and this piece mirrors our current state of affairs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tKmoJbsV2s

"Unfunded liabilities" , "tsunami of spending"

Energy and demographics = doom.

[The Masked Tulip]

I think we need to stop giving pensioners boob jobs on the NHS - and that is just the blokes!

[btl_hater]

much like the housing ponzi,this crisis was totally unforseen.thankfully immigration will keep the birth rate up and produce enough people to staff the old folks homes.

it will all be paid for by the increase in stamp duty receipts as housing transactions and prices pick back up.

sorted innit.

I'm sure the "indigenous" UK citizens would have more kids if they could actually afford a proper fooking house for them to grow up in.

[Rain'ard]

Workhouses?

[Guest_GradualCringe_*]

I had a look at the demographics and pension burden, and I seem to remember a number of about 3 workers supporting 1 pensioner (those of pensionable age now make up 18% of the population or 1 in every 5, and rising), as opposed to when means tested pensions were introduced in 1907, those claiming pensions making up about 1 in every 100 of the population (I couldn't get the ratio of workers to pensioners because I couldn't find any employment figures).

[Lewis Gordon Pugh]

Simple. Make HEALTH car actually mean healthcare, rather than disease management. If you wait for people to get ill, and them keep them alive as long as possible on as many drugs as possible, you will end up going bankrupt at the expense of the pharmacuetical industry.

Stop people getting ill by actually teaching nutrition (proper nutrition, you know where you take vitamins and minerals) in school and stop all this pseudoscience cholesterol crap that deliberately confuses people.

Also hold the food industry to account for selling poison that causes this problem. They either stop selling this crap, or they pay for the consequences. Their choice.

Some old people will always get ill. But no reason why someone in their 70s shouldn't be very active and healthy. Most people in their 40s seems ******ed now a days.

Edited May 15, 2013 by Lewis Gordon Pugh

[Executive Sadman]

NHS expenditure tripled since 1997, from £35bn to £110bn - our incomes barely went up by half.

It went from above average in terms of efficiency to below average in 97, to below by 2007. As starkey noted on QT a couple of weeks ago all the above inflation increases went on wage bills, not more staff, not more equipment, simply wage bills. Now the highest paid medical staff outside the US.I was told a couple of years back even the docs were astonished at the over-generosity of Browns wage increases.

[Executive Sadman]

Simple. Make HEALTH car actually mean healthcare, rather than disease management. If you wait for people to get ill, and them keep them alive as long as possible on as many drugs as possible, you will end up going bankrupt at the expense of the pharmacuetical industry.

Stop people getting ill by actually teaching nutrition (proper nutrition, you know where you take vitamins and minerals) in school and stop all this pseudoscience cholesterol crap that deliberately confuses people.

Also hold the food industry to account for selling poison that causes this problem. They either stop selling this crap, or they pay for the consequences. Their choice.

Some old people will always get ill. But no reason why someone in their 70s shouldn't be very active and healthy. Most people in their 40s seems ******ed now a days.

Yep. Should be to prolong life, and made it as comfortable as possible. Shouldnt be a family planning service, no abortions other than when the mothers life is at risk during pregnancy for a start.

[cashinmattress]

Simple. Make HEALTH car actually mean healthcare, rather than disease management. If you wait for people to get ill, and them keep them alive as long as possible on as many drugs as possible, you will end up going bankrupt at the expense of the pharmacuetical industry.

Stop people getting ill by actually teaching nutrition (proper nutrition, you know where you take vitamins and minerals) in school and stop all this pseudoscience cholesterol crap that deliberately confuses people.

Also hold the food industry to account for selling poison that causes this problem. They either stop selling this crap, or they pay for the consequences. Their choice.

Some old people will always get ill. But no reason why someone in their 70s shouldn't be very active and healthy. Most people in their 40s seems ******ed now a days.

Of course. John Yudkins book published 33 years ago alluded to the crisis under way from our western diets, specifically with high fructose corn syrup.

A must read for everybody, as it explains a lot; Pure, White And Deadly: How sugar is killing us and what we can do to stop it

It is a bit of dry academia, but the points are valid.

Controlling food is the key to controlling society. Monsanto et al. creates both food and legislation surrounding it. Scary times.

[motch]

Simple. Make HEALTH car actually mean healthcare, rather than disease management. If you wait for people to get ill, and them keep them alive as long as possible on as many drugs as possible, you will end up going bankrupt at the expense of the pharmacuetical industry.

Stop people getting ill by actually teaching nutrition (proper nutrition, you know where you take vitamins and minerals) in school and stop all this pseudoscience cholesterol crap that deliberately confuses people.

Also hold the food industry to account for selling poison that causes this problem. They either stop selling this crap, or they pay for the consequences. Their choice.

Some old people will always get ill. But no reason why someone in their 70s shouldn't be very active and healthy. Most people in their 40s seems ******ed now a days.

A couple of years ago the NHS were paying people about 25k a year to go around hospitals (possibly elsewhere) to basically tell/ask nurses to eat their 5 a day. Seems a waste of resources to me for something so obvious, but who knows, maybe it's cost effective.

[fluffy666]

Yep. Should be to prolong life, and made it as comfortable as possible. Shouldnt be a family planning service, no abortions other than when the mothers life is at risk during pregnancy for a start.

Because unlicensed backstreet abortions are so much better, apart from the extra NHS costs from the complications. Never mind that providing contraceptives is incredibly cheap compared to even basic antenatal care.. but if you want to punish girls for being 'immoral' in your eyes, go ahead..

The big growth area is in keeping old people alive a bit longer; most of your medical care will, on average, be in the final 6 months of your life. Providing for the majority of the people the majority of the time is in fact pretty cheap - antenatal care, immunisations, family planning and physical injuries are all pretty cheap and very effective.

[interestrateripoff]

Logans run?

People can't afford care home fees and rabbit hutch houses mean they can't live with the family.

[R K]

There isn't a demographic crisis.

There's a rich/poo crisis.

In any event there can't be many 'boomers' in hospital beds they're mostly in their mid 50s.

[cashinmattress]

Logans run?

Mmmmmm... Jenny Agutter...

[Lewis Gordon Pugh]

A couple of years ago the NHS were paying people about 25k a year to go around hospitals (possibly elsewhere) to basically tell/ask nurses to eat their 5 a day. Seems a waste of resources to me for something so obvious, but who knows, maybe it's cost effective.

Stupid scheme like eating 5 a day is based on weak observational data. There are so many confounding variables, how do we know 5 pieces of fruit will stop cancer?

Proper nutrition gets to basics. Vitamins and minerals, The nutritional literature has plenty of research that shows people are deficient in chromium, magnesium, b vitamins, vitamin C, selenium etc. People have low levels sub-clinical insufficiencies of vitamins and minerals, That is why they get ill.

For example a seminal paper by Clark in 1996 showed that supplementing people with 200 ug of selenium cut cancer cases by 50%. Mortality and morbidity from cancer fell 50%. That's just 1 mineral. People have multiple deficiencies, and that's why they get ill.

A campaign to get decent amounts of all essential elements in core food through proper agriculture would save the NHS billions. In fact it would put pharmaceutical companies out of business.

That's why this info never gets out.

Edited May 15, 2013 by Lewis Gordon Pugh

[ingermany]

Bed blocking has been a problem ever since I was a junior doctor almost 30 years ago. The causes, effects and solutions haven't changed. Fact is that hospitals are, and always will be, the last refuge for the helpless in society. Providing an alternative would take imagination, money and compassion, none of which are in plentiful supply.

[RufflesTheGuineaPig]

Workhouses?

....mustn't....post....story....

[crashmonitor]

Mmmmmm... Jenny Agutter...

Twice over the limit for carousel.

[RufflesTheGuineaPig]

Bed blocking has been a problem ever since I was a junior doctor almost 30 years ago. The causes, effects and solutions haven't changed. Fact is that hospitals are, and always will be, the last refuge for the helpless in society. Providing an alternative would take imagination, money and compassion, none of which are in plentiful supply.

=> The managers running care services don't have enough money for more high-dependency care homes, so they leave people who could be cared for in long-term retirement homes in hospitals until there is a space.

=> The managers who run the wards don't have enough money for more beds, and have no-where to send the existing elderly patients, so they refuse new admittances and make new arrivals wait downstairs in A&E until there is a space.

=> The managers of A&E don't have any beds free for new patients due to everyone waiting to go upstairs, so they make people wait outside in ambulances.

=> The ambulance service doesn't have any ambulances free, as they are all queued up for hours outside A&E waiting to hand over patients.

=> People die because it takes an ambulance 3 hours to get to them.

===========> Everyone blames the ambulance services for being incompetent.

There is a solution.... it's called mandatory handover and responsibility.

When an ambulance has someone to unload, A&E have to find somewhere for them within 5 minutes. If A&E have someone that needs to go to the wards, the manager of the ward has to find somewhere within 10 minutes. When the manager of the ward needs to pass a person onto a long term care home, those responsible for long term care have to provide somewhere within 12 hours. If the manager responsible for long term care doesn't have enough money he has to tell everyone.

At the moment we are hiding a lack of funding in long-term elderly care and it's showing up as a poor ambulance service.

The reason we are doing this is simple - no government want to address the fact that far more has been promised to the elderly during their lives than can be afforded - this is because of a fundamental problem - who-ever admits there is a problem gets the blame, and will be unelectable until everyone currently over 50 is dead.

[cashinmattress]

Twice over the limit for carousel.

Don't knock one of my favourite babes of all time or I'll have Diana Riggs come over and knock the sh1t out of you.

[motch]

good post that ruffles. Until a few years ago I assumed Ambulances would drop off people asap and be ready to respond straight away. I often pick up my partner from work and wait outside the hospital and see this happen a lot, the hanging around for ages waiting to get in with their patients.

[The Generation Game]

Twice over the limit for carousel.

She's looking good for 90!

[cashinmattress]

She's looking good for 90!

The original paperback had folk seeing Lastday at 21, not 30 as in the most excellent but inaccurate movie adaptation.

A remake is in the works. Can't wait to see who is going to play Jessica 6.

[motch]

The original paperback had folk seeing Lastday at 21, not 30 as in the most excellent but inaccurate movie adaptation.

A remake is in the works. Can't wait to see who is going to play Jessica 6.

Rachael Riley would get my vote

[scrappycocco]

Eliminate free prescriptions of all but the generic, the drugs don't work; they're only free because gubermint is more willing to take its trousers down for bigger pharma profits. Encourage people to live healthy, limit carb intake, healthy fats and proteins. Tax sugar. Tax confectionary. Tax fizzy drinks and fast food. Tax artificial sweeteners 6000%. Then after a few years of that, tax fat people so they have less money for food. Legalise marijuana for prescription use, cheer these fat f-ers up give them an appetite for vegetables. Then after that tin foil hat mode, take down chemtrailing planes and ban gmo.