Read more
Tuesday, 5 July 2011
Services for Later Life 2011
Age UK is holding its first ever conference dedicated to promoting excellence in older people’s services on Wednesday 13 July 2011, at the Radisson Blu Portman Hotel in London.
Read more
Read more
Care at home breaching human rights
Older people’s basic human rights are being overlooked in the provision of care at home, according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Read more
Interim findings from the Commission’s major inquiry into home care, reveal significant shortcomings in the way older people are cared for. These include:
· People left in bed for 17 hours or more between care visits
· Failure to wash people regularly and provide them with the support they need to eat and drink
· Individuals left in soiled beds and clothes for long periods
· A high staff turnover, resulting in some people having a huge number of different carers performing intimate tasks such as washing and dressing. In one case a woman recorded receiving 32 different carers over a two week period.
The findings are early results from the Commission’s inquiry into the protection and promotion of human rights of older people in England, who require or receive home based care and support. It will report fully by the end of 2011.
Read more
Research into Dementia steps up
More money and resources will be ploughed into finding the causes of dementia following the launch of a ‘Route Map for Dementia Research’, an initiative involving 17 experts and representatives from government, universities, charities, industry and research organisations.
The Route Map:
The Route Map:
· pledges up to £20 million from DH over five years for four new National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Units
· commits the Medical Research Council to increase funding for neurodegeneration research by 10 percent to £150 million over the next four years to 2015
· boosts the number of experts in the dementia field through new Academic Clinical Fellowships
· strengthens links between public and private research sectors to identify new opportunities for partnership
· ensures more patients and carers get involved in research through the NHR’s Dementia and Neurodegenerative Diseases Research Network, which will facilitate research in the NHS and care home sector.
Read more
Read more
Gardening and GPS make life better - case study
Staffordshire based community mental health nurse, Karen Phillips, gives her account of helping a service user with dementia to maintain his independence with the help of a gardening scheme and a GPS tracking device, financed by direct payments
Doug is a fit and able man in his eighties who has been diagnosed with dementia.
He enjoyed going out on long walks but stopped when he became disorientated and lost his confidence.
Doug and his wife said he had always been very active and a keen gardener, but since moving to a smaller property he no longer had a garden to tend. They also said he often became fidgety at night and was frequently “interfering with things”.
The situation at home had become stressful and quality of life for the couple was poor.
I had recently set up a gardening group for three service users supported by one adult placement worker. A float of £300 was allocated to buy plants and equipment. After many hours of determined work the garden was turned into an allotment. The scheme is funded by direct payments based on £21 per person for four hours.
I told Doug about the group two months after his diagnosis, and he was keen to attend. His wife was relieved to know she had two afternoons a week when she did not have to worry about him, but she needed help with the rest of the week.
We discussed his love of walking and suggested using a BUDDI GPS tracking device, which would allow him to raise the alarm if he got lost, and for his wife to locate him if she wanted to know his whereabouts.
The device has given Doug the confidence to take longer walks if he chooses. He likes using the Buddi and wears it on a neck loop as part of his dressing routine each morning. He then puts it to charge when he undresses each evening.
The BUDDI can be bought outright for £750 for the life of the unit, or £299 plus £10 per month. The latter is the option chosen by the Enablement Team. Doug’s package of two afternoons of gardening a week and the BUDDI, costs £44.50 per week, whereas two days traditional day care a week would cost approximately £106 a week.
With these two measures in place, Doug now has the type of active routine that he is used to. His wife worries much less about him when he is not with her, and she says he is much more settled in the evenings. The added bonus is they now have more to talk about and life is better for both of them.
Looking to the future, I would like to set up similar small groups offering shopping or coffee mornings, cinema or bowling sessions; for service users with dementia who do not fit into traditional day service provision.
Contact: Karen Phillips, telephone: 01543 511078, email:Karen.phillips@staffordshire.gov.uk
Doug is a fit and able man in his eighties who has been diagnosed with dementia.
He enjoyed going out on long walks but stopped when he became disorientated and lost his confidence.
Doug and his wife said he had always been very active and a keen gardener, but since moving to a smaller property he no longer had a garden to tend. They also said he often became fidgety at night and was frequently “interfering with things”.
The situation at home had become stressful and quality of life for the couple was poor.
I had recently set up a gardening group for three service users supported by one adult placement worker. A float of £300 was allocated to buy plants and equipment. After many hours of determined work the garden was turned into an allotment. The scheme is funded by direct payments based on £21 per person for four hours.
I told Doug about the group two months after his diagnosis, and he was keen to attend. His wife was relieved to know she had two afternoons a week when she did not have to worry about him, but she needed help with the rest of the week.
We discussed his love of walking and suggested using a BUDDI GPS tracking device, which would allow him to raise the alarm if he got lost, and for his wife to locate him if she wanted to know his whereabouts.
The device has given Doug the confidence to take longer walks if he chooses. He likes using the Buddi and wears it on a neck loop as part of his dressing routine each morning. He then puts it to charge when he undresses each evening.
The BUDDI can be bought outright for £750 for the life of the unit, or £299 plus £10 per month. The latter is the option chosen by the Enablement Team. Doug’s package of two afternoons of gardening a week and the BUDDI, costs £44.50 per week, whereas two days traditional day care a week would cost approximately £106 a week.
With these two measures in place, Doug now has the type of active routine that he is used to. His wife worries much less about him when he is not with her, and she says he is much more settled in the evenings. The added bonus is they now have more to talk about and life is better for both of them.
Looking to the future, I would like to set up similar small groups offering shopping or coffee mornings, cinema or bowling sessions; for service users with dementia who do not fit into traditional day service provision.
Contact: Karen Phillips, telephone: 01543 511078, email:Karen.phillips@staffordshire.gov.uk
Funding Commission's recommendations welcomed
Directors of adult social services have welcomed "without reservation" recommendations made by the Commission on Funding of Care and Support. ADASS president Peter Hay said the report from the Commission published this month "signals what will become the moment when adult social care was put on a footing to become fit for purpose in the twenty first century.”
The Commission led by Andrew Dilnot, was set up in July 2010 and asked to recommend a fair and sustainable funding system for adult social care in England.
Among the recommendations made in the Commission’s report are:
Recommendations will form the basis of future consultation with government.
Read more
The Commission led by Andrew Dilnot, was set up in July 2010 and asked to recommend a fair and sustainable funding system for adult social care in England.
Among the recommendations made in the Commission’s report are:
- Individuals’ lifetime contributions towards their social care costs – which are currently potentially unlimited – should be capped. After the cap is reached, individuals would be eligible for full state support. This cap should be between £25,000 and £50,000. £35,000 is considered the most appropriate and fair figure
- The means-tested threshold, above which people are liable for their full care costs, should be increased from £23,250 to £100,000
- National eligibility criteria and portable assessments should be introduced to ensure greater consistency
- All those who enter adulthood with a care and support need should be eligible for free state support immediately rather than being subjected to a means test.
Recommendations will form the basis of future consultation with government.
Read more
Supporting innovation and excellence
The JIP’s support of innovation and excellence in social care has led to a number of successful projects taking shape over the last two years, contributing to the transformation of adult social care in the region.
Some of the partnership’s key achievements include:
The Care Funding Calculator is a pricing tool that helps local authorities and PCTs to manage the cost of providing care for adults with learning disabilities. It provides a breakdown of care costs using national data and regional variances, allowing the authorities to negotiate fair prices with service providers.
To date 10 local authorities in the region have saved £5.6 million. The next step is to rollout the calculator to clusters of PCTS to help meet the QIPP challenge.
Redesigning care pathways, for example:
In South Birmingham, where redesigning of care pathways; i.e. the process of mapping out what integrated care will be provided, when, and the time frames; will involve the local authority, PCT, University Hospital Birmingham, the third sector, GPs, the Mental Health Trust and Community Health.
Some of the partnership’s key achievements include:
Improving the quality of information, for example:
AskTARA, a dedicated online resource giving information about assistive technology and telecare products, and services councils provide. It is simple to use and similar to the popular Amazon website with clear instructions on how to navigate the site. The JIP has invested in this project as it supports the requirement for councils to improve the quality of information about social care, and has the benefit of promoting independence with the use of technology.
Prevention, for example:
The Automated Pill Dispenser, a device that automatically reminds the user when to take pills, increasing their independence and wellbeing by ensuring tablets are taken at the right time and dosage.
The JIP set up a pilot project to determine the benefits of the dispenser, such as the potential to reduce admissions to hospital or residential care as a result of either overdosing or not taking the prescribed medication. So far, with 170 people having trialled the gadget, savings of £2,300 per person in health and social care costs have been calculated. The next stage is to roll out a further 400 devices.
Improving Customer Choice and control, for example:
The Mobilising Community Capital programme, which is designed to increase the range of adult social care services and suppliers, including social enterprise and the voluntary sector, and encourage new ways of commissioning. The programme has been set up in response to direct budgets and the personalisation of care whereby service users increasingly have more choice and control over the way their needs are met.
AskTARA, a dedicated online resource giving information about assistive technology and telecare products, and services councils provide. It is simple to use and similar to the popular Amazon website with clear instructions on how to navigate the site. The JIP has invested in this project as it supports the requirement for councils to improve the quality of information about social care, and has the benefit of promoting independence with the use of technology.
Prevention, for example:
The Automated Pill Dispenser, a device that automatically reminds the user when to take pills, increasing their independence and wellbeing by ensuring tablets are taken at the right time and dosage.
The JIP set up a pilot project to determine the benefits of the dispenser, such as the potential to reduce admissions to hospital or residential care as a result of either overdosing or not taking the prescribed medication. So far, with 170 people having trialled the gadget, savings of £2,300 per person in health and social care costs have been calculated. The next stage is to roll out a further 400 devices.
Improving Customer Choice and control, for example:
The Mobilising Community Capital programme, which is designed to increase the range of adult social care services and suppliers, including social enterprise and the voluntary sector, and encourage new ways of commissioning. The programme has been set up in response to direct budgets and the personalisation of care whereby service users increasingly have more choice and control over the way their needs are met.
The JIP has embarked on a region wide market shaping exercise, with the purpose of identifying existing and potential services and suppliers, and to find out what measures are needed to support growth of the new adult social care market.
The next stage is to publish position statements for each local authority, detailing the state of the market in their locality and what the council will do to stimulate innovation and development.
Smarter commissioning, for example: The Care Funding Calculator is a pricing tool that helps local authorities and PCTs to manage the cost of providing care for adults with learning disabilities. It provides a breakdown of care costs using national data and regional variances, allowing the authorities to negotiate fair prices with service providers.
To date 10 local authorities in the region have saved £5.6 million. The next step is to rollout the calculator to clusters of PCTS to help meet the QIPP challenge.
Redesigning care pathways, for example:
In South Birmingham, where redesigning of care pathways; i.e. the process of mapping out what integrated care will be provided, when, and the time frames; will involve the local authority, PCT, University Hospital Birmingham, the third sector, GPs, the Mental Health Trust and Community Health.
The scheme has the potential to save £29.3million across health and social care by 2021.
The next stage is to create a Community Geriatric Service to reduce hospital admissions and the need for complex residential or nursing care.
The JIP will continue over the next two years to support health and social care initiatives that create a richer, more efficient market, that is shaped around customer need, providing better care and improved outcomes.
Contact: Matt Bowsher, Head of Adult Social Care, Communications and Strategy, telephone: 0121 245 0170, email: mbowsher@westmidlandsiep.gov.uk .
Councils meet 30 per cent target for personal budgets
A third of all people eligible for social care support are now receiving a personal budget, with half of those received by people over the age of 65, according to an ADASS survey of 153 councils in England.
More than 338,000 people are now managing their own support: double the number of people from this time last year. The total amount of money allocated in personal budgets overall has now passed the £1.5bn mark, representing almost £1 in every £7 spent by councils directly on care and support services.Of the 132 councils that responded to the ADASS survey, the majority (83) are now delivering personal budgets to a third or more of eligible people, and 27 of these councils give personal budgets to over half of their eligible people.
The rate of increase in personal budget delivery was much faster in the second half of 2010/11, showing that the move to personal budgets is picking up speed.
Nearly all of the increase has been in 'managed' personal budgets, with no significant increase in direct payment numbers in the last year. The survey also found that a significant minority of councils (at least 19) are delivering personal budgets to less than a fifth of potentially eligible users.
Read more
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)