NHS 'too quick to resuscitate acutely-ill'
Some of the most frail elderly patients are suffering "distressing" deaths because hospitals are too quick to try to resuscitate them, a watchdog says.
The National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death reviewed the care given to 585 acutely-ill patients who ended up having a cardiac arrest.
The watchdog concluded that cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) had wrongly become the default setting.
It said assessing if resuscitation was necessary should become standard.
Dominic Hughes reports.
01 Jun 2012
- From the section Health