Bill Harvey: Rainbow rising

Mahatma Gandhi is credited with saying, ‘the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.’

I was shocked to see a report published last week that shows England to have the highest death rates of frail and older hospitalised patients in the western world. The study, carried out by a collaboration between Harvard University, the London School of Economics and the think tank Health Foundation, compared thousands of patient records in 10 different countries across Europe and the US and found England to be wanting in aspects of health care for the elderly and vulnerable. Indeed, England was found to have the second lowest spending in primary and secondary care of these patients, with only the Netherlands having lower overall spending. As primary eye care professionals, we are involved in health care of the elderly and these findings are worth us making some fuss about.