Dehumanisation in hospitals

I have many personal dislikes to language used in relation to older people or people who are living with dementia, but a particular phrase is the subject of this blog mostly because I think it says a huge amount about how the healthcare system sees the very people it is there to serve.

‘Bed blocker’ has become a commonly used phrase to describe a person who is medically fit to leave hospital, but who cannot return to their previous life – perhaps living alone in their own home – due to their personal care and support needs. People who are living with dementia, whether it’s diagnosed or not, are at particularly risk of longer stays in hospital and by default adding the unwanted stigma of being a ‘bed blocker’ to their already stigmatised life.

Such delays in hospital discharge are usually caused by our bloated health and social care systems arguing over who is going to assess, organise, provide and fund an appropriate care package. It is often exacerbated by health and social care professionals failing to communicate between themselves, external care providers, the person - the ‘bed blocker’ - and their family.

What is really lost when we talk about people who are in hospital for longer than they should be is that every ‘bed blocker’ is an individual with a rich life history, a home they are perhaps longing to return to, and immense confusion and frustration at remaining in hospital. No one is more greatly affected than the person who has been labelled a ‘bed blocker’, which is what makes this label all the more offensive.

As a frail older person with dementia in hospital you are largely powerless to decide when you leave, and to some extent, where you might go. Yes, you can discharge yourself, but many people don't have the physical or mental capability to do that, particularly in an environment that strips them of their identity and life skills. They may not be able to find their clothes and organise the transport needed to leave, let alone be able to access their bathroom and bedroom, prepare food and drinks or take medication once they are out of hospital.

The situation is particularly acute for people with dementia because they have increased care and support needs that are very specialised, and with our fragmented health and social care systems it can be difficult to agree, source and fund that specialist provision. The person themselves may not be able to make their own decisions, or possibly could but they don't have access to appropriate advocacy services, and if the person has a family, they aren’t always nearby to provide additional help.

These are older people who are frail and vulnerable, and yet they are seen as being in the way and wasting NHS resources, despite the fact that throughout their working lives they would have helped to fund the NHS. ‘Bed blocking’ has even become an argument for some people who are keen to promote euthanasia, a concept that I’m not sure could be any more dehumanising.

Technically, my dad was a ‘bed blocker’. The two inpatient stays he had whilst waiting for care home placements were lengthy – one stay was three months – and as he became more frail in the last few years of his life, he was admitted to hospital  from his care home with both chest and urine infections. As he was already in the social care system and with funding in place, he did at least have somewhere to be discharged back to, but the care home still had to assess him and agree to have him back.

We were more fortunate than many families whose ageing loved ones yo-yo between hospital and home, struggling in both settings, or who watch their loves ones deteriorating in hospital while they become pawns in funding assessments between health and social care services. Hospitals can be dangerous places for older people who are living with dementia, especially given hospital infection rates and staffing levels. Who would want to lay in a hospital bed day-after-day with only hospital food to eat and with an unbroken night’s sleep an impossible dream – it’s hardly a preferable choice is it?

Yet somehow the term ‘bed blocker’ makes it sound as if the person is actually deliberately blocking the smooth operation of the hospital by outstaying their welcome. It might be a simple term for a hospital manager to illustrate the capacity crisis in their service, or for a journalist looking for a headline grabbing phrase, but it remains about as far away from kindness and compassion as you could possibly get.

So can we ever get away from the term ‘bed blocking’?

Last Wednesday, 11 March, marked NHS Change Day, and although I didn’t personally get involved this year if I’d been creating a campaign it would have been around this issue. The NHS needs to get away from seeing people as a box to tick or a bed to empty. Integration (Joined-up thinking) may be a phrase even more overused than ‘bed blocker’, but I genuinely believe that the answer to many of the challenges the NHS faces with lengthy inpatient stays comes from the availability and funding of social care services.

When the fundamental issues of how and where we provide high quality care and support for frail older people are resolved, we may find we no longer have ‘bed blockers’. In the meantime, let’s stop giving the impression that patients are to blame for being in hospital beds and ditch this dehumanising phrase once and for all.

Until next time...

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