22.01.13
Model of care needs to change – Nicholson
Acute care needs a major shake-up, the chairman of the new NHS Commissioning Board has stated.
In an interview with the Independent, Sir David Nicholson said that elderly people with dementia should be treated in their own homes, as hospitals were “very bad places” for them to be.
He added that the NHS Commissioning Board would focus on preventing falls, managing long-term conditions and creating new community-based treatment centres for elderly patients.
Sir David said: “If you think about the average general hospital now, something like 40% of the patients will have some form of dementia. They are very bad places for old, frail people. We need to find alternatives.
“The nature of our patients is changing – and changing rapidly. You are getting a larger and larger group of frail, elderly patients who are confused.
“I would compare it with where we got to with the big asylums. If you remember what happened in the 1960s and 1970s, there was a whole series of national scandals about care of mentally ill patients.
“The response was not just to say that the nurses who looked after these patients needed to be more caring but actually there was something about the way we treated these patients and the model of care that needed to change.”
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