Rules for loneliness

An old acquaintance died recently. A friend of mine, who was closer to him than I was, rang to tell me. She’d known him for 40 years and looked after him at various times when he fell ill. He was diagnosed with cancer three weeks ago and died suddenly in hospital last week. She tried to find out what happened, but as she is not next of kin (he had no relations) she will probably never know. Within the monolith of the NHS, patients, particularly the elderly, are able to disappear from view as effectively as prisoners in the Soviet gulag. If they don’t re-emerge alive, no except a close relation can discover why.

I first realised this two years ago when I moved from London to Oxford, and tried to carry on volunteering as a hospital visitor. A neighbour broke her leg. When I arrived at the hospital, it proved impossible to see her. ‘If you don’t know which ward she’s on we are not allowed to tell you,’ said a woman on the front desk. Of course I got in by going through a side door. On the ward there wasn’t a nurse in sight to stop me.

This silly secrecy about patient identity or ‘safeguarding’ is a recent NHS obsession. In Oxford more than London, I found every-thing done by the book; a patient told me he was going to kill himself when he was discharged, with details of how he was going to do it. When I reported it, a nurse told me it was not my business.

I gave a man with two broken arms a drink, which was on the tray over his bed. This was noticed by a nurse and reported. Shortly afterwards, I was told by phone not to come to the hospital any more because I had ‘endangered’ a patient and there had to be an inquiry.