Category Archives: ukcuts
Neighbours must help elderly more – Norman Lamb
Neighbours must help elderly more – Norman Lamb
People should do more to help elderly neighbours and ease the pressure on care homes, the care minister has said.
Greater community support would prevent pensioners living a “dismal existence” and going into care unnecessarily, said Norman Lamb.
He told the Daily Telegraph local councils should be helped to rebuild a “neighbourly resilience“.
He also said a deal to cap personal spending on care fees would be unveiled in coming weeks.
The cap was a key recommendation of the government-appointed Dilnot Commission report into care in England, which said it should be set at between £25,000 and £50,000, with £35,000 the fairest figure.
Thousands of elderly needlessly in hospital
Thousands of elderly people are being kept in hospital needlessly after the number of district nurses fell by almost one fifth.
By Tim Ross, Political Correspondent
8:00AM GMT 31 Dec 2012
Official NHS figures disclosed that the number of district nurses working in England declined from 7,813 in May 2010 to 6,424 in August this year.
This represented an 18 per cent cut in the service, which provides nurses to visit elderly and disabled adults in their own homes, since the Coalition was formed.
The fall coincided with a marked increase in the number of days that frail patients spent on hospital wards because of a shortage of adequate community health and care services.