Along with many of my Parliamentary colleagues I want there to be greater transparency in the NHS after an Alzheimer’s Society investigation which found too many people with dementia are falling while in hospital, being discharged at night or being stuck in hospital after medical treatment finished. The Society asked a series of Freedom of Information questions and found:
- 28% of people over the age of 65 who fell in hospital had dementia - this was as high as 71% in the worst performing hospital trust
- In 68 trusts (41%), 4,926 people with dementia were discharged between the hours of 11pm and 6am.
- In the worst performing hospitals, people with dementia were found to be staying five to seven times longer than other patients over the age of 65
Alzheimer’s Society came to Westminster to urge MPs to back their new Fix Dementia Care campaign to end the postcode lottery on the quality of hospital care. The first step is greater transparency - once we know where the shortcomings are we can take steps to tackle them.