Charity warns elderly still go hungry in hospital

Aug 25 2008

A charity in Britain says elderly people are still going hungry on hospital wards and many hospitals are still not doing enough to ensure they are properly fed.

Two years ago the charity Age Concern launched the 'Hungry to be Heard' campaign and says despite the heightened public awareness and a commitment from the Government to tackle the problem, a survey of 110 NHS trusts has revealed that 43% had still not introduced protected mealtimes, where non-urgent ward activities were stopped in favour of focusing on feeding patients.

Age Concern can give many examples of patients missing their meals because they were taken to the toilet during mealtimes or routine examinations were conducted and says that one in three NHS Trusts in England have not yet introduced a red tray system, where meal trays are colour-coded to show a patient needs help with eating.

The Healthcare Commission measures quality standards relating to nutrition but Age Concern does not believe these goes far enough as the Government has not specifically told NHS trusts they must introduce protected mealtimes or red tray systems.

Age Concern is calling for the new health and social care regulator, the Care Quality Commission, which comes into force next April, to make nutrition a top priority for the NHS as research has indicated that six out of 10 older people are at risk of becoming malnourished or seeing their condition worsen in hospital.

Last year the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) received more than 29,000 reports of incidents relating to patient nutrition, ranging from badly fitted feeding tubes and frail patients who could not reach their meals, to people with swallowing problems given incorrect food; there were also deaths where poor nutrition was a factor.

Age Concern says the Hungry campaign has exposed the national scandal of malnourished older patients in hospitals and says while tackling malnutrition should be a top priority for all hospitals, there are unacceptable inconsistencies across the country.