NHS Meltdown: A Continuing Tragedy

I cannot believe the disaster that is befalling the health care system in the UK. Now, it turns out that patients are leaving hospitals malnourished! From the story:

Some 140,000 people are discharged from hospital while underweight every year, and most are never diagnosed or treated, nutritionists warned.

Campaigners have consistently called for better food and more time for nurses to help patients eat. NHS guidelines state that all patients should be assessed when admitted to hospital and referred to a dietician if required. But this is not happening regularly enough, said Mike Lean, professor of human nutrition at Glasgow University and Prof Martin Wiseman, of the Institute of Human Nutrition at Southampton University.

Campaigners and hospital watchdogs have consistently called for better food and more time for nurses to help patients eat. Prof Lean said he was surprised that more medical negligence cases had not been brought by patients who were discharged while suffering from malnutrition.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, he said: “There are still many patients arriving at hospital malnourished and ill and doctors deal with the illness and then send them home and no one noticed or recorded the fact they were pathetically malnourished.

Perhaps the law has given the NHS more than they can chew, so to speak. But clearly, hospitals are not getting the job done.