Patients 'being force-fed with tubes in wards and care homes'

12 April 2012

Patients are being effectively force-fed amid widespread poor practice in hospitals and care homes, according to a report.

Some homes are even turning people away unless they have a nutrition tube fitted because staff do not have time to feed them.

More than 39,000 people in Britain who have swallowing difficulties are given food and drink "artificially" at home or in hospital.

They include cancer sufferers, accident victims with head injuries and people who are dying.

Increasingly, carers are using feeding tubes on dementia patients, despite a lack of evidence that this increases survival rates.

The study was carried out by a working party set up by the Royal College of Physicians and the British Society of Gastroenterology.

It also says "uninformed" doctors are fitting patients with tubes when they could help them to feed normally. In other cases, people are being fed artificially when they should have been allowed to die.

Patient advocacy groups have highlighted concerns that patients are not being helped to eat normally. And families often face disagreements with doctors over how relatives with feeding problems should be treated.

The report has been published to resolve this. It calls for expert assessments so patients are not given feeding tubes when they do not need them. Other recommendations are:

Patients should be allowed as far as possible to eat normally and "nil by mouth" should be a last resort.

Patients for whom swallowing is unsafe should be risk-managed, the panel recommends.

Artificial feeding should never be based on the convenience of staff.

Eating and drinking are enjoyable activities for people and healthcare professionals should do everything to maintain this. The report endorses the red-tray system which alerts staff to people who need help with eating.

Care homes should have sufficient staff, especially at meal times, to feed patients who require longer to eat.

Dr Rodney Burnham, co-chairman of the working party, said: "Sometimes putting a tube in a patient can prolong dying. There should be a full expert assessment of patients."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT