Category Archives: Cancer

Prince Charles: good food in hospitals should be a priority

January 31, 2014   Cancer, hospital, Older care

Prince Charles said ‘food is a medicine in itself’ and called for greater emphasis on good quality hospital meals

By Alice Philipson

7:06AM GMT 31 Jan 2014

Prince Charles wants the NHS to see “food as a medicine in itself”, claiming better hospital meals would speed up recovery times.

He called for the quality of food served by the NHS to be made a “clinical priority” and said long-overdue changes could have benefits in other areas of health care such as malnutrition among the elderly.

It comes less than a month after the Telegraph disclosed that more than one in three hospital trusts have cut spending on patients’ meals in the past year.

Some hospitals are now spending as little as 69p on each meal, according to Department of Health figures, with meals at one trust described as “worse than prison”.

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Older cancer patients ‘should not be written off’

January 24, 2014   Cancer, Carers, Older care, ukcuts

24 January 2014 Last updated at 10:34

Older cancer patients should not be “written off” as too old for treatment, a charity has warned.

Macmillan Cancer Support said decisions on care should be made based on a patient’s fitness, not their age.

It cited data which suggests 130,000 people over 65 diagnosed with cancer between 1991-2010 survived for more than 10 years.

NHS England acknowledged that it needed to deliver better services to people in the over-65 age group.

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Dying patients should be exempt from social care charges

January 15, 2014   Cancer, Carers, dementia, Social care, ukcuts
We need to talk about end-of-life care so fewer people face a lonely death in hospital. Free social care would be a start

theguardian.com,

 

A massage therapist works on the feet of a terminally ill hospice resident.

This week the care bill committee is debating who should be eligible for social care. MPs will also consider whether to add a clause that would enable exemption from social care charges for those at the end of their lives.

The amendment would also establish the need for better forward planning about where we would like to die. Most of us would prefer to be at home surrounded by the people we love, yet fewer than one in three are currently able to do so.

Why is it that 89% of those who die in hospital do so following an unplanned admission? In many cases it is because of the sheer exhaustion that comes with providing around-the-clock care. At the end of life there may be a period of days, but sometimes far longer, of complete dependency. Families go to enormous lengths to cope but, especially where there is only one person in a position to provide care, the elastic can only stretch so far.

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