At What Age Does the NHS Stop Caring?

I'm getting yet more first-hand evidence that the NHS has implemented a set of "don't care" instructions for elderly people with health issues.

In the past two weeks, I have heard of the care or two elderly ladies, in their Eighties with chest infections. Their "treatment" if you can call it that, mimics that of my mother two years ago when she went into hospital. Basically management, not treatment, of their condition. It was only my official complaint to the hospital I think that changed things for the better for my mum. 

But back to these ladies. In one instance only antibiotics were administered. The antibiotics didn't improve the infection, but no other treatment was made, either stronger antibiotics or further investigation to confirm if it was a viral or bacterial infection. Sadly in this case the lady passed away. She was taken from her home to a hospice which infers the "treatment" was already scheduled to be end of life, with no expectation of recovery.

The second lady is still alive, but again is being administered antibiotics, with no apparent improvement over the past 5 days. Chillingly, as well as the antibiotics, the GP ordered end of life drugs. So the expectation from the outset is no recovery. The lady needed oxygen the other day, but it was refused by the GP, so the paramedics attending left after administering morphine to make the lady's discomfort easier, without life-extending oxygen. The option of a hospice wasn't available because no places were available. So she will die in her pretty awful care home. 

In both cases, the ladies in question are over 80. The first was disabled, but still had an active life and was content and healthy other than the chest infection. The second has dementia and is in a home that doesn't really care, so you could argue a lack of current quality of life.

Yet both appear to be condemned to death by the NHS, with no expectation of recovery, just management of the inevitable end that will come without effective treatment towards recovery.

At what age though does the NHS decide your time is up? At what age do they offer only simple treatment without recovery and instead effective treatment is withdrawn as an end goal and instead medicine is administered to make the passage to death easier? Is it age? Is it cost of treatment? Because I now qualify for free prescriptions, I must be costing the NHS a packet.

I say this very seriously, because I'm over 60 and I'm concerned that I might be eligible for this withdrawal of treatment and instead be managed to my passing for a bad dose of the 'flu.

It started happened during COVID and it's still happening. The NHS is withdrawing effective treatment from elderly patients and is instead administering the passage to death. 

These are the people that will be involved with the assisted suicide (or whatever the government call it)  path that was approved in the commons the other week. 

If there's a secret policy within the NHS for elderly patients, you can bet there will be a secret policy within the NHS for people they feel would "benefit" from assisted suicide. There will be mission creep, it will not be an option for people with terminal illnesses, it will be be administered to people that have a good chance of recovery. 

Finally, is this the new NHS cost-cutting? Are they attempting to save money by managing the coup-de-grace instead of treating a patient with the expectation of recovery. Because if that's the new normal, people need to be prosecuted. Dr Shipman went to prison for very similar activity.

As an afterthought, is it cost-cutting? Because there are plenty of cancer patients on very expensive drugs. Does anyone have information of those drugs and that option of treatment being withdrawn? 

Because then the only difference would appear the profit the drugs companies make out of the medicines administered to the patient. Antibiotics are cheap, cancer drugs are expensive. So is the difference the amount of profit the drugs companies can make out of the NHS? Who is administering that corrupt policy?