More than 50,000 dementia patients 'avoidably' admitted as emergencies due to cuts to social care, warns charity

'Threadbare social care system' unable to catch minor ailments before they become serious, Alzheimer's Society says

Avoidable admissions of dementia patients a daily occurrence for some ambulance crews (John Stillwell/PA Wire/PA Images)

More than 50,000 people with dementia are ending up in hospital for emergency treatment every year as cuts to "threadbare" social care mean minor conditions are becoming life-threatening, a charity has warned.

Avoidable emergency admissions have increased by 70 per cent in the past five years, according to a report by the The Alzheimer's Society.

The increase coincides with a 40 per cent cut to local authority budgets since 2012, as part of the government's austerity measures.

"Successive governments have shirked the issue of our threadbare social care system," said the charity's chief executive, Jeremy Hughes.

"Starved of the care they need, people with dementia end up in A&E as a last resort, disrupting their home life and forcing them to struggle in crowded hospital wards. It shouldn't and needn't be like this."

Failure to eat and drink properly can lead to dehydration and significantly increase the chances of a urinary tract infection which can be life-threatening if untreated.

This comes as The Independent revealed thousands of older people are at risk of malnutrition and dehydration in unsafe care homes, themselves often contending with underfunding.

The Alzheimer's Society said that the overworked and underpaid care workforce lacks time and training which means people with dementia are not getting the support they need.

The charity received responses to a Freedom of Information request from 65 major English hospital trusts detailing numbers of potentially avoidable emergency admissions for conditions including dehydration, delirium, UTIs, chest infections and falls.

They found that the number of admissions for over-65s with dementia rose from 31,000 in 2011/12 to 54,000 in 2016/17.

Meanwhile a poll of 113 of paramedics found that one in five said they see the situation first hand "every day" and half said they see it each week, according to the survey by the College of Paramedics.

Commenting on the analysis, Izzi Seccombe, chairwoman of the Local Government Association's Community Wellbeing Board, said: "This report is further stark evidence of the crisis in adult social care which cannot be ignored.

"To help reduce pressures on the NHS, social care needs to be given parity with the health service and councils need urgent funding to invest in effective prevention work to reduce the need for people to be admitted to hospital in the first place.

The government intends to publish its social care green paper later this year.

Labour's shadow social care minister Barbara Keeley said: "This report is a devastating analysis of the social care crisis created by this Tory Government, which is the result of eight years of swingeing cuts to council budgets.

"The Tories are failing people with dementia by kicking social care funding into the long grass."

A Department of Health and Social Care spokeswoman said: "No-one with dementia should have to go into hospital unnecessarily and we're determined to continue to drive up standards of care.

"We are already ranked as one of the best in Europe for our approach to dementia and have invested £50 million to make hospitals and care homes dementia-friendly."

Additional reporting by PA