Thousands of patients dying due to poor hospital care

Poor hospital care is causing thousands of elderly patients to die needlessly after routine operations, according to leading surgeons. Instead of being moved to specialised units filled with teams of consultants and nurses, they warn that many of the NHS' sickest patients are left "languishing" on wards run by junior doctors. The Royal College of Surgeons says care is so poor that high-risk patients in British hospitals are four times more likely to die than those on US wards. The college claims that the elderly — as well as those with cancer and heart problems who are more likely to endure complications — have been "seriously under-prioritised" by the NHS, in part due to its slavish pursuit of waiting-list targets. The comments come after an RCS report examined than 50 existing studies into care of high-risk patients in NHS hospitals who had undergone common operations on their abdomen, such as cancer and hernia operations, or had blockages removed from their bowel. Of the 170,000 who have these procedures every year, more than half — 100,000 — will suffer complications. Some 25,000, or about one in seven, will die. Many develop life-threatening infections, such as blood poisoning, which are often missed by inexperienced junior doctors. The RCS warns that our death rate for such patients is far higher than in any other Western countries. The college's president pointed to an obsession with meeting targets, with managers and doctors more concerned with booking surgery within the required 18-week waiting period than ensuring that the most vulnerable receive the highest standard of care. Professor Norman Williams said: "The focus on reducing waiting times for elective procedures has resulted in a large group of mostly elderly patients becoming seriously under-prioritised to the point of neglect in some hospitals. We are calling on all surgeons and managers to work together to deliver the high-quality care that these patients need."