Department of Facebook Cats

Frazer Anderson is a Consultant Community Geriatrician in East Hampshire. He is Honorary Secretary of the BGS.

Now that the vote on the name of our Society has been concluded – and regardless of the result this was the most successful exercise in participatory democracy the Society has ever carried out – I would like to suggest another way of looking at the issue.

In John Gladman’s excellent Marjory Warren Lecture at the Spring Meeting in Nottingham, he presented some challenging statistics on what older people actually want and – more importantly – don’t want. In a nutshell, older people don’t want to be old if it involves disability, dependence and suffering.

10 days in a hospital bed leads to 10 years’ worth of lost muscle mass in people over age 80

Dan Thomas is an ST6 working in Liverpool. He is the BGS Clinical Quality Group Trainee Rep and the Deputy Media Editor. He tweets @dan26wales

‘10 days in a hospital bed leads to 10 years’ worth of lost muscle mass in people over age 80’

I have lost count of the number of times I have quoted this fact, I use it when teaching on frailty, and I have used it when assessing people in the emergency department to explain the risks of hospital induced deconditioning. I regularly hear other Geriatricians use this fact. It is emblazoned across much of the #EndPJParalysis material, and is quoted (unreferenced) on the NHS improvement website.

How should healthcare services to care homes be configured – results from the Optimal Study

Adam Gordon is Clinical Associate Professor in Medicine of Older People at the University of Nottingham. He tweets @adamgordon1978 Claire Goodman is Professor of Health Care Research at the University of Hertfordshire.  She tweets @HDEMCOP Here they describe findings from the Optimal Study, funded by the National Institute of Health Research and delivered by a collaboration of researchers from the Universities of Hertfordshire, Nottingham, Surrey, City University London, University College London, Kings College London and Brunel University.

The UK care home sector, with 425,000 beds, is just over three times the size of the acute hospital sector.  It is home to some of the oldest and most vulnerable members of UK society.  The average resident is over 85, has multiple health conditions, cognitive impairment and physical dependency.  Providing care to such older adults is recognised to be complex and challenging.

“The Emperor’s New Clothes”

Professor Martin Green OBE has had an extensive career in NGO development, both in the UK and internationally, and is Chief Executive of Care England, the largest representative body for independent social care services in the UK. He will be speaking at Living and Dying Well with Frailty event on 6 March. Follow the conference on the day via #bgsconf

We have now got a Department of Health and Social Care, what a difference that is going to make (I said sarcastically). With increasing regularity, the Government seems to think that messing about with the headed paper is a route to change. How much evidence do they need that changing titles and rejigging the logos is not going to deliver the transformational change that is required in order to deliver the route map to integrated services. If we had spent one tenth of the money we have spent on new titles, new structures and new logos on culture change, we would be in a far better position than we find ourselves today and the integrated services that citizens are crying out for might be a more attainable goal.

Geriatric Oncology: Why older patients need a special approach

Anthea Cree is a clinical oncologist currently undertaking an MD in advanced radiotherapy at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust. She co-founded a group within the hospital to work towards better outcomes and experience for older patients.

I recently did a clinic during which the average age of the patients was over eighty and the oldest nearer to one hundred. This is probably not unusual for the readers of this blog but I’m an oncologist, not a geriatrician.

I’ve been an oncology registrar for six years and even over this short period of time, it seems like encountering octogenarians in clinic has changed from unusual to routine. This is a positive step as a third of cancer patients are over 75 years old and in the past many did not get a chance to see a specialist as they were automatically deemed to be too old for treatment.

BGS Rising Star Awards: Ruth Law and Thomas Jackson

The BGS Annual Rising Star Award recognises young doctors, nurses and AHPs who have made exceptional contributions to the field of older people’s health care, early in their career. Two awards are available each year; one for research contributions that have translated into, or are in the process of being translated into, improvements to the care of older people, and the other, for a clinical quality project which improves the care of older people with frailty in the award holder’s locality.

In 2017, the award for quality went to Dr Ruth Law, Consultant in Integrated Geriatric Medicine, Whittington Health, for her work with the Integrated Community Ageing Team (ICAT) in Islington and to Dr Thomas Jackson for the work he has been doing in research.

Ruth trained mainly in and around London. She says that her training included a formative year as part of the stroke team at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosciences where she had the privilege of working alongside world-class researchers as they developed a new service.

Can a National Frailty Education Programme be a driver of culture change in healthcare?

Dr Diarmuid O’Shea is a Consultant Geriatrician at St Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin, Ireland, and Deirdre Lang is the Director of Nursing, National Clinical Programme for Older People, Royal College of Physicians of Ireland and Health Services Executive

We all know that population ageing is occurring rapidly. Between 2015 and 2030 the number of people in the world aged 60 years or over is projected to grow by an extraordinary 56%. By 2050, the global population of older people is projected to more than double its size (United Nations, 2015). In Ireland, the population 65 years and over is projected to increase by between 58 and 63 per cent from 2015 to 2030. The older old population (i.e. those aged 80 years of age and over) is set to rise even more dramatically, by between 85 per cent and 94 per cent in this time period (ESRI 2017).

What is “essential” about dementia care?

Dr Shibley Rahman is an academic physician interested mainly in dementia and frailty. He tweets at @dr_shibley

I have often wondered what ‘essential dementia care’ looks like. It must include treating people with respect and dignity.

Failures in dementia care, sustained for a long period of time, however obligate a more detailed response. The concept of personhood was first applied to people with dementia by Tom Kitwood (1997). The concept is used generally to describe what makes up the attributes of “being a person” (Dewing, 2008). According to Kitwood (1997), personhood is ‘a standing or status that is bestowed upon one human being, by others, it implies recognition, respect and trust’. Therefore “dementia care” is potentially a deceptively simple term because respecting personhood means that people are not defined primarily by their conditions.

Making the most of our assets

Beverley Marriott is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner working in the Birmingham community healthcare foundation trust. She is also a King’s College Older Person Fellow. She tweets @bevbighair

The Reimagining community services report (Kings Fund 2018) highlights the need for strengthening community services with the aim of supporting our  older population, bringing to reality the vision set out in the NHS Five Year Forward View.

Unfortunately, the concept of reimaging services brings about concerns with growing financial and workforce pressures, these pressures could have a huge effect on the delivery of the recommendations. This could have a major impact on the ability of service providers to deliver services to meet the needs of the service user.

The Reimagining Community services report suggests that radical transformation of community services is required.  This would mean an additional share of the NHS budget. The NHS budget would be given to these services in order to make effective use of all the assets with our community. 

Is this your first time?

Dawne Garrett is Professional Lead for Older People and Dementia at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Eleanor Sherwen is Professional Lead for Palliative and End of Life Care, and also works at the RCN. They will be delivering a workshop at Living and Dying Well with Frailty Meeting on 6 March in London. Please note this meeting has now sold out and there will be no on site registration. To join the waiting list please email registrations@bgs.org.uk

Approaching end of life care discussions with the patient for the first time…

Dawne and I have been asked to deliver a 60 minute workshop on this key and sometimes challenging area of practice. The importance of choice and the delivery of holistic person centred care is repeatedly highlighted in the literature, both from researchers and policy makers.  Yet how can we even begin to deliver person centred care when there is at times a reluctance to open up and initiate these essential conversations? Let alone when communicating with someone who has limited sight, poor hearing and cognitive impairment. The evidence says that professionals can feel more comfortable approaching conversations in relation to sex, rather than having conversions with patients and those that are important to them focused on death and dying.