NHS 'failing disabled patients'

Disabled patients 'let down'

NHS services helping patients who have suffered strokes or had limbs amputated are "inadequate", according to leading doctors.

The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) says a shortage of hospital beds and a lack of doctors working in rehabilitation medicine is adversely affecting the quality of life of disabled patients.

We were taken aback by the scale of the problem

Professor Lindsay McLellan

The report calls for an increase in the number of doctors and more hospital beds to address the problem.

It also recommends better training in rehabilitation medicine for doctors and says services should be available in hospitals which are closer to patients' homes.

A survey carried out by the British Society of Rehabilitation Medicine found that no region in the UK is providing the recommended levels of service.

Its study showed huge variations in rehabilitation services across the UK and found that, on average, there are just half the recommended number of beds and half the recommended number of consultants.

'Taken aback'

The society's president Professor Lindsay McLellan said he was "taken aback" by the results of the survey.

"We were expecting to see discrepancies and to see some places falling behind others, but we were taken aback by the scale of the problem and the variations from one part of the country to another."

He said the association would press MPs and health authority chairmen to improve rehabilitation services.

Dr Linda Marks, who headed the RCP team which drew up the report, said the needs of disabled patients were being ignored.

"Disabled people often feel that services provided for them come at the bottom of the NHS priority list."

She called for extra money and better targeting of resources to improve facilities for disabled patients.

Dr Marks said disabled people were suffering because of the lack of rehabilitation facilities.

"People with disabilities often have so much to give back to society but are unable to do so because of current barriers in accessing appropriate health care."