Old News

Ninety per cent of five hundred nurses questioned by Age Concern said they "do not always have time to help patients who need assistance with eating"; and this a full five months after the Secretary of State for health service privatisation, Patsy Hackitt, informed the Royal College of Nursing all about reorganising rotas and making better use of permanent staff. According to Age Concern, sixty per cent of elderly patients are at risk of "malnourishment or deteriorating health". Malnourished patients, the Guardian has discovered, "stay in hospital longer, are more likely to develop complications after surgery and have higher mortality"; which means that the nurses, presumably, will soon be busier still. Let's hope they can get around to reorganising their rotas while they still have a bit of time to themselves.