Stockport Express Column - October 2009

Recently I attended a discussion Age Concern and the Stockport Link had organised with older people about how to eliminate age discrimination in delivering health and social care services.

This was part of a national consultation in the summer about how best to implement the new Equality Act.

It was very interesting. Everyone agreed that there had been significant improvements in the NHS over the last 12 years, including shorter hospital waiting times and longer GP opening hours. New drugs and more advanced medical interventions have meant that the quality of life in old age has improved hugely. However people said that they still felt that the attitudes of some health and social care professionals towards older people were based on the view that illness and dependency was part of old age and that older people should just accept that inevitable process.

A few have put it more strongly and told me that they are made to feel a nuisance.

The overwhelming majority of people working in the NHS and other agencies are a credit to their profession. They understand that as people get older they worry more and sometimes need extra time and patience.

However there are still too many unhappy stories. It is a great advance that now GP's can instantly access patient's records from computers. However my friend's mother's GP spent the whole consultation on his computer. At the end she left feeling a nuisance. She said it was because she was old he wasn't interested.

Interestingly a lot of the complaints I have had from people about the NHS have not been about medical treatment but about attitudes and care of older relatives.

Being older can be a worrying experience and older people need to feel they are being heard and that they are being treated in the same way as the rest of the population.

This does not cost money to change but can make a huge difference to the person needing care or treatment.