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Soaring numbers of dementia patients admitted to hospital as emergencies, then stuck there for months

Official figures show hundreds of pensioners are left in hospital to endure stays of up to a year - PA
Official figures show hundreds of pensioners are left in hospital to endure stays of up to a year - PA

More than 1,000 dementia patients a day are being admitted to hospital via Accident & Emergency units, with some ending up stuck on wards for months.

The number of cases admitted to hospital as emergencies has risen a third in five years, with hundreds of pensioners left to endure stays of up to a year, official figures show.

The Alzheimer’s Society said the “collapsing social care system” meant vulnerable patients who should have received help at home were instead being admitted to hospital in a crisis.

And the charity warned that tens of thousands were being “dumped” on wards for months, for want of care services to look after them once discharged.

The NHS statistics show 379,004 emergency admissions for Alzheimer’s patients in 2017/18, a rise of 100,000 compared with 2012/13.

It means that almost half of those in England with a dementia diagnosis have gone to A&E in just one year.

In total, 40,000 spent at least one month in hospital – including 412 patients who were stuck on wards for between six months and a year, the figures show.

The rise in emergency admissions among those with dementia is costing the NHS around £280 million a year, the charity estimates.

Boris Johnson has pledged to fix the social care crisis, promising to draw up a reform plan within 12 months.

The Prime Minister has said no one will have to sell their home to fund social care.

Jeremy Hughes, chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Society, said people with dementia were being left “to fall through the cracks in our broken social care system”.

He said too many Alzheimer’s sufferers were ending up in hospital because of avoidable emergencies, such as infections, falls and dehydration, because they had not received the social care they needed.

“People with dementia are all too often being dumped in hospital and left there for long stays,” he said.

“Many are only admitted because there’s no social care support to keep them safe at home. They are commonly spending more than twice as long in hospital as needed, confused and scared,” he said.

Social care provision in England is means tested, with people with more than £23,500 in savings or assets having to contribute.

But councils are forcing growing numbers to pay out for care which used to be provided free.

In total, 45 per cent of all care home residents now pay their own fees, up from 40 per cent in 2009.

The charity is calling for £8bn a year for social care to be allocated in the spring budget, and the immediate start of cross-party talks on reform of the system.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We know that hospital visits can be distressing for people with dementia which is why there should be high-quality care in the community.

“We have given councils an extra £1.5bn next year for children and adult’s social care and are determined to find a long-term solution so that every person is treated with dignity and offered the security they deserve.”

In the last year of her life, Dorothy Boschi spent more than seven months in hospital, after three emergency admissions due to falls and infections.

Even after she was deemed fit for discharge, the NHS and social services spent four months wrangling over a care plan, leaving the pensioner stuck on a ward, and feeling increasingly angry and depressed. She died last January, aged 97.

Her daughter Daphne Havercroft, 63 from South Gloucestershire, said: “I had to fight so hard to get her released so she didn’t spend her last Christmas in hospital. Everything was a battle to get proper care.

“We tried to put my mother's best interests at the centre of everything we did, but it felt like we were obstructed at every turn. The whole system has lost sight of the person they are meant to be providing care for.”