Confused Relatives Angry At Lack Of Quality In Care Homes, UK

Main Category: Caregivers / Homecare
Article Date: 20 Mar 2009 - 0:00 PDT

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Trusting families are being forced to leave their loved ones in the hands of unqualified staff in many UK care homes.

Shocking statistics reveal a third of care homes specialising in dementia do not provide staff with dementia care training. Only 57 per cent of people living in care homes as a result of dementia are receiving care in settings dedicated to the condition.

Colin Ball, managing director of continuing care funding specialists Cheselden, said:

"Changes to the funding system need to happen now. This is yet another example of how our care system is failing to assess people in care properly. This results in too many people needing specialist care being placed in an incorrect care environment and denied the correct level of funding. This is causing anger and despair amongst families.

"Too many families are suffering financially and emotionally through no fault of their own. A mixture of confusing advice and lack of knowledge is resulting in people accepting the wrong treatment in the wrong setting and also wrongly denied NHS funding. We've found many examples of cases where patients have been assessed inadequately in hospital. Worryingly this could have a detrimental affect on the person's health and future levels of care.

"There are many people in non-specialist rest homes who should actually be in EMI (Elderly Mental Infirm) care homes and people in EMI care homes who should be receiving specialist nursing treatment. All too often, this is down to poor and misleading assessment procedures.

"The target culture in the NHS is also a serious issue, with PCT's stating in one financial report that they need to 'mitigate the risk' of overspending a pre-defined continuing care budget. What does this mean? Not spending money on dementia patients?

"The bottom line is that these people are ill. They need care; the NHS through the PCT's are repeatedly failing to provide and fund that care. Cancer is also on the increase, would the NHS get away with refusing to treat patients simply because there are an increasing number of patients?

The report highlights that two thirds of care home residents have dementia - more than a quarter of a million people, however the vast majority are not in homes set up to care for people with dementia. The report also estimates that the number of dementia sufferers will more than triple in the next 50 years.

Source
BUPA

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