BMJ 2001;322:807-808 ( 7 April )

Editorials

A new beginning for care for elderly people?

Not if the psychopathology of this national service framework gets in the way

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The National Service Framework for Older People,¹ discussed in last week's news,² displays a personality split between its ERG and its IG. An external reference group (ERG) of selected experts offered advice,³ but the framework was written by an "in group" (IG) of civil servants. The IG subserves a political agenda, and that agenda, unchanged over 50 years, is to keep old people out of hospital.

IGians believe that care in proper hospitals is too expensive for old people. This partly reflects a preoccupation with cost per institutional day (money that might be saved by closing something down) rather than with cost per satisfied patient (money properly invested). But savings from putting old people in cheap, ill resourced accommodation are rapidly lost in unnecessarily prolonged lengths of stay, not to mention human misery. IGian fantasies are fed by studies of "inappropriate" use of hospital beds by older people. The definition of . . . [Full text of this article]

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• Manthorpe, J., Clough, R., Cornes, M., Bright, L., Moriarty, J., Iliffe, S., OPRSI (Older People Researching Social Issues), (2007). Four years on: The impact of the National Service Framework for Older People on the experiences, expectations and views of older people. Age Ageing 36: 501-507 [Abstract] [Full text]  
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