DAILY MAIL COMMENT: A callous request to sign your life away
To limit unplanned hospital admissions, the elderly are currently being visited in their home by district nurses, armed with questionnaires.
Few will argue with the aim of reducing the number of people being placed needlessly in institutional care – which is both distressing for them and expensive for an NHS under ever-increasing strain.
It’s also perfectly fair and compassionate for the nurses to ask if, as many people will wish, they have a preference to die at home when the time comes.
The NHS will say there is no malice involved, but the approach is as deeply troubling as it is insensitive
But, as we report today, there are grave concerns about another question on the list: Do you agree to a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) notice?
The Royal College of Nursing says its members, most of who will be meeting the person for the first time, should not be put into the position of asking the elderly to sign their life away at an inappropriate time, particularly since they may be confused or not have a relative present to support them.
Roy Lilley, a respected health care expert, warns the replies will encourage GPs – themselves under budgetary pressure – to compile a ‘death list’, which they can produce whenever the person falls ill or is taken to hospital.
Indeed, he adds, the question itself is ‘callous’ and potentially disturbing, since it might leave the frail or vulnerable wondering if the visiting nurse ‘knows something they do not’, and death is imminent.
Doubtless the NHS will say there is no malice intended, but this approach is as deeply troubling as it is insensitive.Don’t forget the Liverpool Care Pathway – under which patients judged to be dying were left without treatment, food or fluids – similarly began with supposedly humane intentions, only to be scrapped after this newspaper highlighted fears that it was being coldly misused to free hospital beds.
Reward for failure
Yesterday, the Mail reported how – in yet another Whitehall IT catastrophe – the Home Office has blown £500million on the failed eBorders project, which was mismanaged from start to finish.
As a result, Britain still can’t count people in and out of the country – with one in every five journeys not checked in advance against terrorist watch lists.
In the private sector, anybody responsible for such a disgraceful waste of their employer’s money would expect demotion or dismissal.
Yet Lin Homer – the £200,000-a-year Home Office civil servant who presided over this and countless other immigration disasters – was promoted, and is now in charge of... HMRC.
Heaven help the public if Ms Homer, the woman with the reverse Midas touch, succeeds in her quest for chilling new powers to take unpaid tax direct from people’s bank accounts.
Meanwhile, just what does it take these days to get sacked from a civil service which was once the envy of the world, but now so readily rewards failure?
Off the rails on fares
Heaping fresh misery on commuters, it was yesterday announced that train companies will be able to increase their prices by up to 5.5 per cent next year.
The overall rise since 2010, when wages have mostly been below inflation, is a punitive 25 per cent.
Yet, according to transport minister Claire Perry, travellers who spend thousands of pounds a year to stand on packed trains shouldn’t be upset, as they are paying ‘fair fares for a comfortable commute’.
If ever there was an example of how disconnected politicians are from ordinary voters, this is it.
But then, with Miss Perry having access to a plump expenses account and tax-payer-funded Government car, why on earth wouldn’t she be?
Most watched News videos
- Horrified children watch as seals tug at their dead friend's flippers
- Footage appears to show moment missile struck Soleimani convoy
- Las Vegas woman beaten and allegedly kidnapped on doorbell camera
- Coffin alleged to hold Qassem Soleimani leaves Baghdad hospital
- Amanda Henderson calls Greta Thunberg 'Sharon' on BBC show
- Footage appears to show moment US airstrike hit Soleimani convoy
- Fight erupts on Jubilee line between two revellers on New Year's Day
- 24 Hours in Police Custody: Cambridgeshire murder investigation
- Iranian general becomes emotional after death of Qassem Soleimani
- President Trump announces death of Commander Qassem Soleimani
- Thousands of Iranians flood streets to mourn after Soleimani dies
- CCTV captures moment boxer is nearly killed by out-of-control van
Britain sends two warships to the Gulf to 'protect our ships and citizens' in the wake of assassination of Qassem Soleimani as protests break out across world and Boris Johnson prepares to fly home on Sunday to deal with crisis
