Help the Aged has expressed great concern about a recent consultation paper from the powerful National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) which appears to justify open discrimination against older people in some medical treatments (‘Social Value Judgements for NHS Treatments’).

NICE has enormous influence in deciding what treatments are available under the National Health Service and which are not and, where there are problems meeting the demand for some recommended treatments, which patients get treated and which ones go without.

In fact, NICE seems to have tried to choose its words quite carefully, for example: ‘health should not be valued more highly in some age groups rather than others’, and ‘individuals’ social roles, at different ages, should not influence considerations of cost effectiveness’. But it also seems to have been substantially influenced by answers to an opinion poll question which asked: ‘If extra money became available for the NHS, how would you prioritise where the money should go? Young children? People of working age? People over the age of 65?’

The answer NICE got was 45% for children;
19% for those of working age;
and just 12% for people over 65.

NICE concluded that ‘where age is an indicator of benefit or risk, age discrimination is appropriate’.

Of course this inevitably depends on who is assessing the benefits and the risks, what guidance they are required to apply, and what prejudices they bring to the assessment. Others would argue that age should not be used as an indicator in any circumstances, but that each case should be assessed on its merits regardless of the age of the patient. NICE’s remarks have set the alarm bells ringing.

Jonathan Ellis, Policy Manager for Health and Social Care at Help the Aged has said: ‘To suggest that anyone should receive less care and attention simply because they happen to be older is blatant discrimination. It also runs contrary to the government’s stated aim of tackling the prejudice against older people that exists in health care services’

He continued: ‘However, it is important that we don’t lose sight of the fact that NICE is engaged in an ongoing consultation on this issue and that this process is yet to conclude. Through that consultation Help the Aged will be strongly urging for guidelines that stress the importance of treatment on the basis of need rather than age’.

A Help the Aged report earlier this year found that depression in older people is being ignored, misdiagnosed and untreated, despite it being one of the most common conditions in later life. Older people are continuously discriminated against because the signs and symptoms of depression are all too often dismissed as a ‘normal’ part of ageing.
(Source: Help the Aged)