An elderly care home patient in Hove was admitted to hospital with severe dehydration.
Molly Calder, 92, has dementia. She has lived in three residential homes in Brighton and Hove over the past few years and experienced difficulties with hydration in each home.
She was admitted to the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton for treatment in January.
Her case was highlighted on the day that the BBC TV programme Panorama was due to broadcast a report about care for the elderly.
Mrs Calder’s daughter, Jean Calder, from Brighton, said: “When she went to hospital with dehydration the response was not as it should have been.”
At a meeting of the Brighton and Hove City Council Adult Care and Health Committee this afternoon (Monday 17 June) she said: “I believe we need to increase awareness of the dangers of dehydration in residential and home care services and hospitals.”
She called on the council to explore the possibility of a city-wide awareness campaign to tackle the problem.
Councillor Mo Marsh said that Ms Calder’s concerns about this were not in any way isolated. She called for an awareness campaign, including leafleting, and added: “We can fix this. It’s not about huge drug budgets.”
Councillor Dawn Barnett called for compulsory training for all care home staff. She said: “Elderly people who are dehydrated are vulnerable to urinary tract infections and get confused.”
Councillor Geoffrey Bowden said that one small step would be to include information about hydration in the relevant section of the council’s website.
The council’s director of adult social care, Denise D’Souza, said that members of her team had talked to colleagues in the NHS about the difficulties in recognising the signs of dehydration.
She said: “We’re thinking about how we can remind people with some kind of campaign.”
She added that officials had been discussing dehydration recently during contingency planning meetings about what to do in the event of a heatwave this summer.
She said: “We will share lessons with our colleagues delivering care in residential homes as well as in home care settings.”
