A patient advocate wants to strike the term “frequent-flyer”, amongst others:
Mr Cayton, the national director for patients and the public, said of the term frequent flyers: “It implies that somehow these people want regular trips to hospital, that they are collecting points, that they enjoy the health and life-threatening roundabout of continual admission, treatment and discharge.”Other phrases, such as bed-blockers, shifted the blame from the NHS to the patient, and further examples of labels included referring to those who do not turn up for appointments as “DNAs”.
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{ 4 comments }
“they enjoy the health and life-threatening roundabout of continual admission, treatment and discharge.”
One “frequent flyer” I know is homeless, has a chronic dvt in his leg, and has a greenfield filter. Anytime the New York Yankees are in the playoffs, he goes to the ER, tells them he has a history of DVT, his leg hurts, and he gets himself admitted for a week of Heparin, free television and 3 meals a day. After a week someone usually figures out his scam.
I wonder if administrator Cayton has any idea the medical slang used for them.
What could you expect from the PC UK .I came to know they recently banned innocent ‘piggy-banks’ to pamper islamists.oh so touchy feely.
This term can be detrimental to patient care. As proven by the last hospital I worked at. A patient labled this way came in in pre-term labor and no one paid any attention to her she ended up preciping a 30 week infant breech.
The infant was transported to the nearest NICU and has many major medical problems. We as nurses need to quit labling and care for our patients.
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