healthmedicinet

Figures obtained by this newspaper under freedom of information laws found
that 1,158 care home residents suffered dehydration-related deaths between
2003 and 2012. Dehydration was named as either the underlying cause of death
or a contributory factor, according to analysis of death certificates by the
Office of National Statistics.

Some 318 care home residents were found to have died from starvation or when
severely malnourished, while 2,815 deaths were linked to bed sores.

The real figures are likely to be far higher because residents who died while
in hospital were not included.

Campaigners said the disclosures raised serious concerns about the way
vulnerable elderly people were treated and why the Government had failed to
decrease the numbers dying of thirst after more than three years in office.

Dot Gibson, general secretary of the National Pensioners Convention, said the
care system needed an urgent overhaul.

“It is not good enough for ministers or the care regulator to talk about
making improvements by 2015 when, in the meantime, older people are dying
from neglect.

“The public would be outraged if animals were treated in the same way – we
need to show the same compassion when it comes to caring for our elderly
loved ones,” she added.

Earlier this year a coroner found that neglect by staff at a Birmingham care
home contributed to the death of Norma Spear, 71, who lost 35lbs in five
weeks while suffering from dehydration.

Her daughter Carol Clay said she was shocked by the level of dehydration
deaths uncovered by The Daily Telegraph but feared that in 10 years’ time
nothing will have changed.

The care system has been hit with a succession of scandals in recent years,
with homes accused of systematic neglect and carers jailed for abusing
patients.

Earlier this year a series of unannounced inspections by the Care Quality
Commission, the health watchdog, discovered that vulnerable people in homes
and hospitals were routinely denied privacy, inadequately fed or just ignored

The regulator heard staff dismissing elderly people as “lost causes” and
forcing residents to use lavatories without doors. Around one in three homes
inspected failed to pass any of the CQC’s five standards used to measure
performance.

In 2011 a BBC Panorama investigation secretly filmed staff at Winterbourne
View private hospital, near Bristol, hitting and taunting patients with
learning disabilities. Six staff members were eventually jailed, while 19
patients are due to receive compensation. In October a coroner said that
Orchid View care home, near Crawley, West Sussex, where 19 residents died,
was riddled with “institutionalised abuse” and criticised the CQC for rating
it as good in 2010.

Last year the CQC issued 818 warning notices to adult social care services in
England – around two thirds more than the preceding year.

Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, has said he will give the CQC “statutory
independence” in an attempt to make the regulator more efficient, moving it
on to a similar footing as the Bank of England.

Reacting to the findings, a Labour spokesman said that every elderly person
“deserves the high standards of care that we would all want for our own mum
or dad”. He added: “We will never get the care we aspire to from a social
care system that has been stretched to the limit and cut to the bone.”

Norman Lamb, the care and support minister, said the deaths from thirst and
starvation were “entirely unacceptable”.

He added that new CQC rules would allow it to intervene more effectively, and
ministers would act to make company directors personally responsible for the
care their organisation provides.