What Do You Think?

Earlier this week another big report on the NHS in England and Wales concluded that some carers and nurses treated older people with "contempt".

So said the Commission on Dignity in Care - led by Sir Keith Pearson, whoever he is - but he went on to warn that workers should be dismissed if they failed to provide dignified care for their patients.

Later on that day I listened to a discussion on the BBC's Newsnight programme - involving a Unison spokesperson and a representative from the care sector.

The Unison person immediately blamed poor standards and any alleged bad behaviour on public spending cuts - as if these problems had appeared out of thin air over the past year or so.

To give Jeremy Paxman and the person from the care sector credit - they both gave this foolish argument short shrift by pointing out that poor standards had been with us for a long time - and that the incidents were reported in some hospital wards - or even certain shifts.

So how could spending cuts be the cause - when many parts of a hospital were doing doing well - yet others not.

Which is what's so depressing about the trade unions sometimes - the knee jerk, defensive response - the refusal at times to see the bigger picture and look at issues from the standpoint of the patient - or the patient's family.

My dear old mum was in and out of hospital before she died - the standard of care she received was very good and very poor at different times - yet spending on the NHS was at an all time high during the period in question.

So it seems obvioius to me that spending cuts - real or imagined - have nothing to do with the basic duty of the NHS and the care sector - to treat older people with dignity and respect.

Sir Keith Pearson said that his Commission had found that in some hospitals - older patients received better attention from the cleaners than nurses, adding:

"Very often it is the cleaner who might be the person who spends that few minutes talking to a patient, someone who is not necessarily trained in customer contact but who actually has got the communication skills necessary." 

Which seems like an accurate observation to me - one that chimes with my own experience.

But what I find depressing is that we yet another big commission is trying to improve things - whereas simple thing would make much more impact.

For example, I wasn't once asked what I thought of my mother's care while she was in and out of hospital - nor was she for that matter - but my mum was the kind of person who would never have dreamed of making a fuss.

Whereas I think it should be absolutely routine that patients and/or their families - should be asked for feedback about their care - which could be done in a vatiety of ways including by e-mail, for example, to make life easy.

What did you think of our care and service - do you have any comments, compliments or complaints?

I'm pretty certain that would get things moving - help identify problems and problem areas - and so help drive standards up.