Britain’s heatwave could see ‘neglected’ elderly patients die of thirst on NHS wards, Whitehall fixer Louise Casey warned today.
With temperatures forecast to hit 40C on Wednesday and Thursday in parts of England, Baroness Casey issued a stark assessment about the impact on older people.
She bemoaned how the elderly are ‘unheard’, ‘unseen’ and ‘unloved’ in Britain, with the country having ‘stuck our heads in the sand’ about the consequences of an ageing population.
Baroness Casey is heading a major review into adult social care in England and told MPs on Wednesday her interim report later this year will suggest some ‘quite big’ changes to the system.
She revealed she had been in contact with Andy Burnham, who is poised to succeed Keir Starmer as Prime Minister and has previously proposed a ‘national care levy’ to replace inheritance tax.
In impassioned remarks to the House of Commons’ Health and Social Care Committee, Baroness Casey delivered a bleak appraisal of the current state of social care.
She said there ‘appear to be no targets’ on dementia or social care in England, adding: ‘It just seems to me that we have targets in some areas of business in the NHS but no targets elsewhere.
‘And I think that’s because this area of the elderly and dementia is unloved and doesn’t have the same status as other areas both in medicine and more generally.’
With temperatures forecast to hit 40C on Wednesday and Thursday in parts of England, Baroness Louise Casey issued a stark assessment about the impact on older people
Baroness Casey said the current heatwave could leave many elderly people feeling even more neglected.
‘I think the power of the voice of the elderly… people think they’re incredibly powerful,’ she told the committee.
‘Well, where I’m looking at it, I think that they’re unheard and they’re unseen. Probably now there are people living in the weather that we’re living in right now where they’re even less unseen.
‘I just cannot bear how we seem to have neglected the area of the elderly and how we treat them in society and how we look after them.
‘We’re all born, and once we’re born you’re all going to die… and why, therefore, we can’t think about in terms of how we organise ourselves in public policy, I don’t know.’
Baroness Casey told MPs ‘the most amazing thing has happened’ in Britain, with life expectancy having ‘doubled in a century’.
But she added: ‘We’ve stuck our heads in the sand about what that means. And we can’t continue to stick our heads in the sand about it.
‘Because there will be people on wards right now that are so hot, so unhydrated, and will anyone be taking them water to make sure they stay alive today?
‘That’s how bad I think it is, and that’s how unloved this particular area of policy is.’
Baroness Casey outlined an example of the current division between health and care provision in England.
She described how she had spoken to a long-serving nurse who was ‘very upset’ that frail patients were being catheterised on her ward, rather than taken to the toilet, because ‘essentially it wasn’t a medical issue, going to a toilet’.
Baroness Casey’s independent commission on adult social care was announced in early January 2025 and formally began a few months later in April that year.
It is thought its second phase, making long-term recommendations for the sector, might not report until 2028.
But Baroness Casey on Wednesday pointed to the phrase ‘by 2028’ in the commission’s terms of reference, indicating the overall work might be completed sooner.
She also told the committee that she was expecting the Government to recruit a ‘dementia tsar’, which she has previously demanded, ‘very, very soon’.
There have been two sets of cross-party talks on social care as part of her commission, Baroness Casey added.
