BMJ  2004;328:350 (7 February), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7435.350

Letter

Older people and the "patient centred" NHS

Choice for mentally ill patients will be even less with new legislation

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

EDITOR—Rowland and Pollock highlight another of the inequities of the NHS plan, with its heavy emphasis on acute hospital waiting and admission times, and the consequent impact on frail and chronically ill elderly people.1

Elderly mental health beds will not be included in the delayed discharge legislation because they are not considered to be acute, though how beds that are needed to admit patients sectioned under the Mental Health Act are not considered acute beggars belief.

This exemption could be seen as recognition of the need for careful and often complex community care arrangements for these patients. However, social workers, who are already unable to provide the care packages they need to discharge these patients from acute hospitals, once subject to fines for the delays will inevitably see patients with depression or dementia, for whom they will not be fined, with even lower priority than they do now. . . . [Full text of this article]

David G Wilkinson, consultant in old age psychiatry

Moorgreen Hospital, Southampton SO30 3JB


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Choice and responsiveness for older people in the "patient centred" NHS
David R Rowland and Allyson M Pollock
BMJ 2004 328: 4-5. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Access jobs at BMJ Careers
Whats new online at Student BMJ