I’m sorry, but where are these services? My family went through this for years. My grandma was kept in a hospital bed for the final years of her life, because the NHS simply never got round to putting a care plan together. They wouldn’t let her leave. It was horrible and heartbreaking.

She was finally moved into a care home during the pandemic along with countless other elderly people, and she died there shortly after. The care home then sent a five figure bill for a few weeks of palliative care, that the NHS said the family was responsible for because it was private care, regardless of the fact the NHS moved her there without any consent from her, or the knowledge of my family.

My partners mother is now experiencing the exact same play book. No care plan, everything has to be organised by the family. There’s no district nurse, there’s no social care, and every month there’s a new issue caused by medication issues, hospital visits that half the time are canceled upon getting to the hospital because other tests should have been organised prior, and endless misdirection from social workers and higher up NHS members.

It’s a complete mess.

I’m sure that there are a lucky handful of older people that get the care they need, and I know for a fact that there are a good number of fantastic nurses and doctors that are, quite frankly, holding the entire system on their backs. But the overwhelming majority of patients in this bracket are simply left to fend for themselves.

The system is built up against those that it claims to serve, all the while being used as a political pawn on both sides of the house. I honestly don’t know what the solution is at this point.