Calling someone middle-aged is now inappropriate according to the NHS.
Middle-aged may be a simple, straightforward description of someone neither young nor old, typically between 40 and 60, but it is now in a list of words the NHS says should not be used in written patient information.
Also banned are the terms OAP and pensioner, or senior, according to the health service’s digital service manual.
Older patients have said the NHS should focus more on their medical treatment and less on terminology.
Dennis Reed, from Silver Voices, which campaigns for older patients, said: ‘The terms OAP and middle-aged are just a shorthand for describing people of a certain age, they are not discriminatory, and this is just extreme political correctness.
‘While we would prefer NHS staff do not use the word elderly, this list is a giant distraction from the real ageism at the heart of the NHS, where older people are written off and sometimes denied treatment or screening at a certain age.
‘It would be far more helpful if the NHS would focus on the treatment given to older people.
‘I am far more concerned with that than whether someone has referred to me as a senior.’
Calling someone middle-aged or a pensioner is now inappropriate according to the NHS. File image
Middle-aged is now in a list of words the NHS says should not be used in written patient information. File image
Older patients have said the NHS should focus more on their medical treatment and less on terminology. File image
Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, said: ‘As a 77-year-old man I find it incomprehensible why terms like OAP, elderly or middle-aged need to be excised from our vocabulary.
‘The NHS’s exercise in linguistic engineering assumes that there is actually something disturbing about being old. This has the effect of infantilising patients.
‘I don’t mind being called an old codger but I do resent the fact that the NHS takes two months to provide me with my scan results.’
The NHS manual says it ‘does not use’ the terms middle-aged, elderly, OAP, old age pensioner, pensioner or senior.
It states: ‘We prefer to specify ages, for example: ‘adults aged 65 and over’.
‘In some contexts, we use ‘older person’ or ‘older people’, for example, where the risk of getting a condition increases as you get older.’
