A dementia patient who went to the hospital after a fall has told how he was secretly sedated and prevented from getting out of bed for a week.
Andy Woodhead, 69, has told his account as part of the first-ever national review of an NHS “culture of containment” where dementia patients are prevented from leaving their beds, sometimes for weeks. Retired lawyer Andy was diagnosed with vascular dementia 11 years ago, but lives independently at home with his partner in the Vale of Glamorgan in South Wales.
Describing his hospital admission last summer, Andy told the Mirror: “I had fallen outside the house. I actually passed out, so I couldn’t break my fall, so I actually went down onto my head and face, and it was a mess.
“I was taken in on a stretcher, then they put me on to a bed and put the sides up. I wasn’t allowed out of bed for the whole week that I was in the hospital. I was only allowed to use disposable bottles for urine. There was no TV, nothing. All I could do was watch people walking past my cubicle.”
While initially in A&E, he says an “out of control” drunk woman came into his cubicle and had to be restrained by staff who wrestled with her on the floor. Andy was then admitted to an acute ward and says he “slept the whole time I was there”.
Andy said, “They kept bringing me my medication in the little white plastic containers. I said, ‘this is more medication than I normally take. What are you giving me?’ The nurse said, ‘Oh, I’ll go and find out, and I’ll come back to you.” But they never did. I only had one meal in all the days that I was there. I told them I hadn’t eaten today, and they just said: ‘That’s because you’re sleeping all the time’. They weren’t very nice about it.
“I said, ‘Well, I’m diabetic, I have to eat.’ So they agreed to go and find me a sandwich, but I was made to feel like it was my fault because I was asleep. Looking back, I was clearly being sedated. My visitors came to see me, and I slept through most of the visits. It was all a bit of a blur, really.”
The landmark review by the University of West London looked at how dementia patients are cared for during an urgent or unplanned hospital admission, such as after a fall or when suffering a sudden illness or injury.
Such admissions of dementia patients make up between 25 per cent and 50 per cent of all acute hospital admissions. The 18-month study observed nine acute wards across six NHS hospital trusts selected to be representative of the country as a whole. A total of 168 patients and medical staff members agreed to participate in over 1,000 detailed interviews.
The report said that if dementia patients try to leave the bed forcibly or push a member of staff, they can be labelled “aggressive in their medical notes. This can lead to social care packages being withdrawn, meaning they may never be able to return to living independently at home or resume their care home residence.
Andy said he could understand why agitated patients confined to their beds throughout their hospital stay could become aggressive and try to leave. He said, “I didn’t understand why I was being confined to bed. If patients feel like they’ve been kidnapped or they’re being imprisoned because of the way in which they’re being subtly restrained, I can fully appreciate that it adds to their agitation, which could make them ‘aggressive’.
Andy is a Dementia UK Ambassador and goes into hospitals to teach staff how to handle dementia patients, working tirelessly to challenge the myths and stigma surrounding the condition. He insists NHS staff are generally doing their best in difficult circumstances. He said, “There’s a fine line between safety and restraint. I call it subtle restraint. I mean, clearly, they don’t want me falling out of bed.
“But if you have dementia, lack of social interaction is likely to make the condition worsen. It is vital. Without it, people can become non-verbal. They become afraid and extremely lonely because they feel like they’re a nuisance.
When I teach medical people about handling people with dementia, I say ‘talk to them’. They often say ‘we haven’t got time to talk to them’ and I say ‘well, if you talk to them, you’ll have more time because they’ll be better patients’. They’ll know you and feel safe and secure.”
Andy, who has just become a grandfather, added: “It was amazing meeting my granddaughter. I cried. It brought back memories of when my son was born. I never thought I would live to see a grandchild. I thought my dementia would have progressed so much that either I wouldn’t know who she was, or I would have died by now.
“It is possible to live well with dementia. There are so many myths about the speed of its progression. There are over 100 different types of dementia. It can be a journey that’s 20 years long or three years long. When I got my diagnosis, I just thought I would be unable to function normally within about six months. Nobody ever explained anything.”
Failing NHS England has put patients at risk at nearly every level for years, presently bombarding the NHS with cheaper, lower-qualified staff with online digital patient fobbing off systems, and triage systems rejecting or delaying patient referrals, et cetera, while NHS England leaders continue to get far too much money, plus pension salaries.
Sadly, inadequate treatment of dementia patients is extremely common, both in the home and in hospitals.
Someone I know had a fall and ended up in the hospital. She was there for a week or so. They said that they needed the bed space, and they needed to send her to a care home, which she did not want, but her care package had not been arranged yet, and they just shuffled her off to the care home regardless of what she wanted. Luckily, her daughter, who does not live nearby, managed to sort things out and got her home literally just before Christmas.
All of this is quite heartless, and it frequently causes someone to feel terrified and alone. It’s just one big fit-up, and I’m sure they’ll want to fit me up for saying it.
This is why a lot of elderly people who enter the hospital never leave.
I have seen this first-hand. Overburdened wards with not enough staff. An elderly lady with dementia and only one leg came to my ward (I was also a patient). She kept trying to get out of the bed, they catheterised her, sedated her so she couldn’t move, and at one point I was asked if I could keep an eye on her and press my buzzer if she tried to move, and sleepy elderly relatives in a hospital bed can be effortlessly explained away with them saying that it is lack of stimuli, so nobody would know if they were being medicated to almost fatal levels.
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