Home Care News Archives - Deckchair Care

November 4, 2020November 4, 2020

Is a National Care Service the answer?

Social care reform is enormously difficult and there is attraction in the apparently simple concept of mirroring the National Health Service, which could offer comprehensive, high-quality, person-centred services that meet needs and enhance lives.

What would a national care service mean?

But questions remain. Who would be eligible for publicly-funded care? Who manages and commissions it? Who provides it? How it is funded and Who would regulate it? The answers to many may not have to sit centrally and may not be best carried out at a national level.

Who gets publicly funded social care currently, unlike the NHS, depends on their assets. The levels of these are set nationally and could remain so. There is an urgent need to lower the eligibility so more people have access funded support. National rules on eligibility need to be applied evenly – unlike now where there are variations.

If eligibility should be set nationally, management and commissioning of social care should happen locally. As much control as possible needs to be in the hands of people using services. Local councils know their communities and markets, and are best placed to support a person-centred approach. Yet, possibly due to finances, they don’t always deliver.

Most of England’s 18.5k social care providers (including Deckchair Care) are in the private sector, so who delivers a national care service is more interesting. A nationalised service would be hugely expensive, legally difficult and time-consuming to implement, without necessarily delivering the benefits its proponents expect.

In many people’s view, it is better to have a mixed market of providers from the public, voluntary and private sectors. That, though, requires local authorities to pay providers a fair price for good quality care, which in turn requires national government to fund councils adequately.

In conclusion, some aspects of adult social care should be run and funded nationally. This may be more complex than some might expect of a national care service, but it will deliver better social care.

About Deckchair Care

Deckchair Care are an independent, privately-owned care agency. We look after the elderly in Cheshire and South Manchester.

Read more about our care service

Thanks to ChatGPT for help creating and editing this article.

Deckchair Care are an independent, privately-owned care agency. We look after the elderly in Cheshire and South Manchester.

Read more about our care service

Thanks to ChatGPT for help creating and editing this article.

January 27, 2020January 27, 2020

Rapid response teams to help older people at home.

The NHS is planning to relieve strain on hospitals by offering a visit within two hours.

New teams will include nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, social workers and social care staff.

The “urgent community response” teams will operate 365 days a year and will help older people and those with complex care needs try to avoid ending up in hospital.

The teams are a key element of the NHS’s plan to provide increasing amounts of care in people’s homes.

The NHS and councils in seven areas of England will start putting the teams together and hiring staff from April 2020, with at least three starting to offer the service before next winter. Cheshire is one of the 7 areas.

Age UK estimates that there are almost 500,000 older people in England who are living at home and have multiple health and care needs.

About Deckchair Care

Deckchair Care are an independent, privately-owned care agency. We look after the elderly in Cheshire and South Manchester.

Read more about our care service

Thanks to ChatGPT for help creating and editing this article.

Deckchair Care are an independent, privately-owned care agency. We look after the elderly in Cheshire and South Manchester.

Read more about our care service

Thanks to ChatGPT for help creating and editing this article.

September 7, 2018January 10, 2019

Social care needs predicted to double in next 20 years

There has been growing concern over the cost of providing care for older and disabled adults. Spending on social care in English councils has shrunk by £7bn since 2010.

Research suggests there is going to be an explosion in social care requirements for Britain’s ageing population.

A recent study has concluded that health and social care services must adapt to the unprecedented needs of an older population with complex care needs, and warned the state should not rely on family carers as a sustainable solution to the problem.

“In the next 20 years, the English population aged 65 years or over will see increases in the number of individuals who are independent but also in those with complex care needs. This increase is due to more individuals reaching 85 years or older who have higher levels of dependency, dementia, and comorbidity. Health and social care services must adapt to the complex care needs of an increasing older population.”

Those who have dementia and at least two other major health conditions, such as obesity or diabetes, will double over the next two decades, it estimated, suggesting an extra 500,000 people will need complex forms of care.

The government has promised a green paper on social care funding will be published in the autumn.

Social Care Trends

The study also highlighted different trends for men and women, with the latter likely to experience higher levels of care dependency than their male counterparts by 2035, and fewer years of later life spent free of care needs.

Prof Carol Jagger of Newcastle university’s Institute for Ageing, and a co-author of the Lancet paper, said the gender differences highlighted the importance of focusing on disabling long-term conditions such as arthritis that were more common in women than men.

Simon Bottery, a senior fellow in social care at the King’s Fund thinktank, said: “This study is further evidence of the scale of pressure building up on social care services from an ageing population, which is compounded by growing demand from working age adults with disabilities.”

Read the Lancet article here

And a press article of the report from the Guardian here.

About Deckchair Care

Deckchair Care are a domiciliary care company helping to look after the elderly. Read more about our independent care service on our main website.