Patients being tube-fed 'to save time'

Patients are having their health put at risk by staff who feed them through tubes unnecessarily because they are too busy to help them eat normally, a UK report has warned. Putting a tube into the stomach to give nutrition artificially should be a last resort but busy hospital wards and care homes are using them inappropriately. Experts said that there could be a "hidden agenda" for fitting feeding tubes due to staffing issues and costs. Care homes are refusing to take some patients without a tube in a widespread practice which was condemned. Telegraph