A community activist and women’s rights campaigner from Brighton has spoken out about poor care for older people.
Jean Calder spoke on The Vote, the politics and current affairs programme on Latest TV, about the number of unnecessary premature deaths.
She said: “We as a society do appallingly in terms of the care of our elderly people.
“More and more information (is) coming out about poor care in care homes and nursing homes.
“There’s been a recent study … if you go into hospital as an elderly person, you’re five times more likely to be dehydrated if you’ve come from a care home than if you’ve come from your own home.
“They were speculating that this is because in care homes perhaps people are deliberately not being given enough fluid because of problems about incontinence and so on.
“That may well be one reason. I suspect that the problem is far greater than that.
“You’ve got a huge number of premature deaths and we’re just not looking at it properly.”
She was referring to a recent study led by Anthony Wolff, an ITU – or intensive care – consultant.
The study found that patients admitted by a London hospital trust from care homes were much more likely to be dehydrated and at risk of dying while in hospital.
Dr Wolff said: “Our study shows that too many patients admitted to hospital from a substantial number of care homes are dehydrated, leading to unnecessary loss of life.”
The peer-reviewed study appeared in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine last month.
One of the study’s co-authors, Martin McKee, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “This raises serious concerns about the quality of care provided in some care homes.”
Professor McKee added: “When a care home has more than a few residents admitted to hospital with high sodium levels this may well be indicative of a systematic problem at the care home and the issue should be raised formally.”
David Stuckler, professor of political economy and sociology at Oxford University and the other co-author of the research paper, said: “Clearly this level of dehydration is a problem.”
Professor Stuckler said: “Further research is needed to understand why it is occurring.
“Are care home residents choosing to drink less than they should?
“Or, as has been speculated, are care home staff not offering enough water to reduce incontinence and the amount of assistance their residents require?”
Fluid charts should be introduced as standard.