Two stories caught my eye this week. First, that the elderly are being left hanging about in A&E waiting rooms while younger people “with simpler needs” get seen more rapidly, within the four-hour target. “Our study demonstrates older people living with frailty may not be appropriately prioritised within the acute care pathway,” the authors wrote.
And second, a revealing pair of quotations from the Covid inquiry, which has been rooting its way through diary entries by Sir Patrick Vallance. Boris Johnson, according to Vallance, was “obsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life and the economy going”. Later — worse — the notes suggested Johnson had agreed with a suggestion that “we should let the old people get it and protect others”. Forget letting nature take its course — Johnson apparently wanted those most in danger pre-emptively offered up for sacrifice. Perhaps he felt that this would somehow sate the virus, and it would leave the rest of us alone.
