Older people are being denied vital surgery for cancer, hernia repairs and joint replacements because the NHS imposes "cutoffs" for treatment based on age discrimination, a report has warned.
Health
professionals can be too quick to decide against offering surgery
because of "outdated assumptions of age and fitness", according to the
study by the Royal College of Surgeons, the charity Age UK and
communications consultancy MHP Health Mandate. Doctors and surgeons
should stop using chronological age to assess suitability for a
procedure and instead use their "biological age", or overall health,
because growing life expectancy and the increasingly good health of
senior citizens make birth date alone redundant as the deciding factor,
it says.
The study found that while people's health needs increase
as they grow older, rates of planned surgery for some common conditions
among older people steadily decline. "The gap between the increasing
health need and access to surgery means many older people are missing
out on potentially lifesaving treatment," concludes the study, which
details the variation by age group in patterns of treatment for eight
types of surgery.
Full Article on Guardian Society
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