Helen Whately, the care minister, gave a moving speech this week. It was personal and emotional, but it won’t get much attention.
Whately told a health conference organised by the Nuffield Trust about the final months of her grandmother’s life. Her grandmother had reached the age of 100 and was living independently, enjoying walks in the countryside, a spot of gardening and reading, she told the audience. But then, she had a fall, and while Whately said she would spare the conference the details of what happened next, there was a period of five months in which the centenarian was stuck in hospital. She was ‘occasional receiving treatment, but mostly waiting for discharge’, Whately said.
We are so used to the social care sector barely existing that we think it is normal for a fall to mean the end of someone’s life
By the time she could finally be discharged she was bedbound, and died two weeks after returning home.
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