Lack of care leaves dementia patients trapped in hospital

The Alzheimer’s Society, a charity for people with dementia, has highlighted the need for change after it was revealed that thousands of dementia patients are being left in hospitals due to a lack of community care.

Staying in hospital can be a distressing time for anyone, but those with dementia can find the experience particularly difficult. Yet data has shown that one in 10 individuals with dementia are having to spend over a month in hospital, many of whom don’t actually need to be there.

Between 2017 and 2018, 379,000 patients with dementia were admitted into hospital, an increase of 100,000 from 2012-13.

The number of dementia patients going into hospital as an emergency admission is also rising, with many in an ongoing cycle of being admitted, discharged and then readmitted.

The charity’s chief executive Jeremy Hughes stated that many dementia patients are only sent to hospital because there is no available care to look after them at their home. As a result, individuals are spending much more time in hospital than is needed, leaving many confused and scared.

A chartered legal executive in the medical negligence team at Ashtons Legal, comments: “It’s extremely sad that such a large number of dementia patients are left in hospitals for such an unnecessarily long duration. It’s obvious that someone suffering with this condition needs to receive specialised community care so that they have the appropriate supervision they require. It can be hugely distressing for patients with this condition to be left in hospitals and should by no means be a long term solution. There needs to be urgent measures put in place so that there are many high quality community care options.”