Frail patients 'endure agony in care homes'

8:49am Friday 23rd March 2007

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Elderly people in Sussex nursing homes are being left in "shocking pain", a new survey has revealed.

Two in five people in care homes say they are in constant agony and others have admitted to having suicidal thoughts.

The research, conducted confidentially among pensioners whose average age was 82, reveals the extent to which the frail and vulnerable are made to suffer unnecessarily.

It was carried out at 24 nursing homes across the country, including six in East Sussex. Eight per cent of those interviewed described their pain as "excruciating".

One 95-year-old woman said: "I will cry every night nearly, the pain is so bad."

The research was carried out by the Patients Association, the independent lobby group led by columnist Claire Rayner, a former nurse.

The association's spokeswoman Katherine Murphy labelled the findings "a disgrace". She called for a more proactive approach to help a generation who tended not to make a fuss.

Mrs Murphy said: "Failure to relieve pain is morally and ethically unacceptable and it is the basic duty of health professionals to provide relief when it is needed.

"Chronic pain can severely reduce quality of life. In this research, poor pain management limited the activities of 90 per cent of the interviewees and caused more than one in three to feel depressed."

More than eight in ten said no doctor or nurse had ever talked to them about how the pain could be treated, and 57 per cent had never been asked about their pain by other nursing home staff.

Discussions about pain often excluded them and took place between nurses and GPs.

Mrs Rayner said: "Arthritis comes high on the list of very painful conditions, as does polymyalgia rheumatica, a widespread inflammation of the muscles, which I suffer from myself.

"I can't tell you how painful that is. It is agony to move, but no one should have to put up with pain these days. Nurses in care homes should not say, Are you all right?' because many elderly people just say Yes'. Instead they should ask, Do you hurt anywhere?'."

There are 500,000 people in Britain aged 65 or over who live in nursing homes. The research was by the independent Picker Institute and funded by a grant from Napp Pharmaceuticals.

The findings back earlier research in which 39 per cent of people who cared for elderly relatives or friends reported that doctors or nurses never or only occasionally reviewed their patient's pain level.

The research was based on interviews with 77 residents late last year in homes in East Sussex, West Yorkshire, Oxfordshire and the West Midlands.

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