ELDERLY people in care homes are being sent to hospital emergency departments to die because of difficulties in getting GPs to attend their bedsides, it was claimed yesterday.

Scottish Care, which represents around 800 of Scotland's 1500 care homes, said GP outof-hours contracts have made it hard to find doctors who will attend homes at weekends and, as a result, staff have to resort to the NHS 24 helpline and accident and emergency departments.

Joe Campbell, chairman of Scottish Care, said: "The system at weekends is particularly difficult. We do find it extremely difficult on occasions to get doctors to come to patients who are extremely ill.

"What we are having to do, very reluctantly, is to take some of these elderly people from their beds in nursing homes and residential homes and take them to accident and emergency establishments at hospitals."

His claims were backed by Bill Morrison, a consultant at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee, who said that, until recently, it was common for elderly people to be moved from homes to casualty.

However, Lewis Macdonald, the deputy health minister, said the situation in Dundee was resolved and the problem was not widespread in Scotland.

He said: "There is no evidence of it being a problem throughout the country, but if Scottish Care has evidence of that, then of course I would want to hear it.

"People should not be taken to A and E if it's not an accident or emergency, or if what they require is to be cared for in their own bed.

"The provision we have put in place will mean that should not be necessary and should not be done."

Dean Marshall, deputy chairman of the BMA's Scottish general practitioners' committee, agreed and said there was not a shortage of GPs to visit care homes.

Meanwhile, concern was raised yesterday that Scotland's NHS watchdog was not safeguarding elderly patients on long-stay wards.

Pat Dawson, head of policy and communications for the Royal College of Nursing in Scotland, said it was time to review the inspection system.

Her comments follow a call for action from the Scottish ombudsman, who handles complaints against the NHS, and Age Concern Scotland to address anxiety that some patients miss out on basic attention such as help in eating meals and timely assistance using a toilet.

Ms Dawson called for a fresh look at NHS Quality Improvement Scotland, the in-house body which monitors hospital standards.

She said: "It does upset and alarm the profession when we hear that care and nurses' capacity to care does not meet public or patient standards. But often there is a complex mix of reasons behind that and very, very, very occasionally is it because someone does not care."

Stewart Maxwell, the SNP's deputy health spokesman, said:

"There are plenty of recommendations, but these are not being implemented, and we have to have some way of ensuring they are enforced on the ground on long-stay wards."

A spokesman for NHS QIS said: "We are visiting every hospital in Scotland and assessing their performance against the national standards for food, fluid and nutrition."

A spokeswoman for the Scottish Executive said: "We have been working very hard with bodies like the RCN to set up continuous monitoring of care on the wards which brings better feedback and flags up clearwarnings when things are going wrong. Part of that is a new complaints system introduced in April this year which is simpler, easier and quicker to respond to concerns of patients and their families.

"Under this system, the independent ombudsman is able to intervene at a much earlier stage. QIS acts as another independent body which is able to use inspection in a much more effective way targeted at areas where we know problems arise."