Health Care Standards for Elderly Persons (Hansard, 4 April 2000)

§ Mr. Paul Marsden (Shrewsbury and Atcham)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the National Health Service (Primary Care) Act 1997 to prohibit the refusal or delay of treatment or the provision of an inferior standard of care on the basis of age and to establish an inquiry into the extent of age discrimination in the provision of health services. I am presenting the Bill to highlight the national problem of age discrimination in health services, including dental services, and to urge the Government to set up a national inquiry to investigate the massive evidence of discrimination and prejudice against the elderly. The Bill is backed by Age Concern, and has the wholehearted support of Help the Aged. I should like to thank everyone in those organisations for their dedication and commitment to the elderly. I should particularly like to thank Julia Lueginger and Caroline Gilchrist of Age Concern for their terrific support and expertise in helping to produce the Bill.

It is an open secret that elderly people are vulnerable and do not receive the same quality of treatment as younger people. They may not be as physically active as younger people, and may not be able to communicate as well. There is clearly prejudice at work, because the elderly do not always receive the respect that they deserve.

I am not saying that the national health service is, per se, discriminatory against the elderly—it is not. Thousands of caring auxiliaries, nurses, doctors and consultants fight day in and day out to give the best possible care and treatment to the elderly. I salute them, as I know that they work under great pressure. I have seen that at first hand, and I am amazed at how well they cope. Many older people have said that they have received outstanding care, but worryingly the multitude of evidence that has been sent to Age Concern shows that there is a case to answer.

The country was delighted with the Chancellor's announcement in the Budget of £2 billion of extra money this financial year, with a promise to drive up health spending towards the European Union average. That is long overdue, and I warmly welcome it. However, it must go hand in hand with more modernisation and an improvement in standards. I want measures to stamp out discrimination against the elderly, and a real commitment to improving health care standards for older people.

I appreciate the fact that the Government will publish later this year a national service framework for older people. However, I believe that an inquiry is still needed to establish the size of the problem, and to send a strong signal to pensioners that the Government are listening to them. It is not about better service decisions in the future, but about stamping out discrimination now.

This weekend, The Sunday Times reported the allegations of a junior doctor, Rita Pal, who came across examples of discrimination because of the age of the patient. I understand that a dossier containing the allegations has been sent to the General Medical Council. Two weeks earlier, an undercover Sunday Times reporter had found other cases of mistreatment of the elderly.

828 Since launching its campaign, Age Concern has been inundated with hundreds of detailed accounts of elderly people receiving poor to appalling treatment. Its report, "Turning your back on us", graphically illustrates the point. Four new cases provide examples of the continuing discrimination experienced by the elderly and their relatives.

The first case concerns an elderly lady from London. Her daughter reports that she suffered initially from a chest infection; however, when the daughter visited her in hospital, she found new bruises on her body. She also found that her mother sometimes received no assistance with feeding, that pills were left by her bedside, and that an oxygen tube was not plugged in. That elderly lady died.

The second case, in Nottingham, involves an 84-year-old lady who, at 75, was told by her GP that she was suffering from a build-up of cholesterol. However, she was allegedly told that the cut-off age for cholesterol treatment was 70. She never received the treatment on the NHS.

The third case is that of an elderly lady from Berkshire, who was admitted to hospital for a routine operation and, unfortunately, was then rushed into intensive care. It is alleged that she was moved out of intensive care early to make way for a 30-year-old woman. The elderly lady subsequently died.

The fourth case concerns an 81-year-old lady from Darlington, who suffered for seven months owing to a misdiagnosis by a GP and the local hospital. Doctors did not believe her desperate cries of constant pain, which they put down to arthritis and emotional distress. In fact, it was not all in her head: it turned out to be cancer.

Those cases and many more are subject to internal complaints procedures and ombudsman reviews. Each case on its own could be dismissed as an isolated one, but the sheer weight of cases adds up to something far more serious. There is clearly discrimination against older people in parts of the NHS, although it is not limited to the NHS; I would say that the problem exists throughout today's society.

We would rightly never stand for discrimination against people because of the colour of their skin, their sex or their sexuality. I fear that a lack of respect for older people is becoming endemic across society. Medical decisions should be made solely on a basis of clinical need. I believe that, as well as providing decent, fair standards of health care based on clinical need, we should ensure that we fulfil a debt of gratitude to that generation. A generation who survived Hitler's blitz deserve the best health care.

The elderly are not a drain or a burden on the health service; they are the pioneers who designed and built the NHS. In its campaign "Dignity on the Ward", Help the Aged draws attention to the need to change the views of certain medical professionals about the elderly. Some 1,300 people wrote supporting the campaign and highlighting appalling standards of care in—again—parts of the NHS.

We are not talking just about discrimination that prevents people from receiving treatment; this goes much further. We need to stamp out the second-class-citizen mentality that is sometimes found nowadays. Older people deserve respect. Sometimes they are frightened to speak out, fearing that their treatment will be stopped, or never started, if they complain.

829 Age Concern discovered from a Gallup survey that one in 20 people over 65 had been refused treatment, while one in 10 felt that they had been treated differently since turning 50. It has been found that four out of 10 coronary care units apply age restrictions to certain drugs, that two thirds of kidney patients over 70 have been refused dialysis or transplants, and that some clinical trials involve age limits. That is blatant, unacceptable discrimination.

I urge the Government to set up a national inquiry to investigate this national scandal. We need to establish the extent of the discrimination that is spreading across society, to identify the underlying reasons for it, and to come up with new ways of rooting out the prejudice and discrimination. We need to educate, and to raise awareness of the problems. Above all, we need to send a clear signal to everyone in the NHS that discrimination will not be tolerated.

As for those—I shall call them angels—in the NHS who care so well for the elderly: I thank them. We must aim to raise standards to their level—to be sensitive, patient and respectful to the elderly. As for the minority who discriminate against and abuse the elderly, I remind them of this: one day, they too will grow old. I urge the House to support the Bill and to end discrimination against the elderly in the health care services.