Monthly Archives: March 2012

David Behan, Director General for Social Care talks about the Prime Minister’s challenge on dementia

The Prime Ministers’s challenge on dementia

 

David talks about the Prime Minister’s challenge on dementia to society about how we respond to people that have dementia to support them to live the lives they want to live.

Key points

The Prime Minister as challenged us all to:

  • raise the awareness around dementia
  • develop the capability and capacity of staff working with people with dementia
  • increase the numbers of people diagnosed with dementia (only 40% of people with dementia receive a formal diagnosis)
  • ensure the quality of services is to a high standard
  • ensure a research programme can be conducted.

The three workstreams

  1. raising awareness
  2. improving quality of care and health services for people with dementia
  3. set an ambitious program for development of research into dementia
  4. http://davidbehan.dh.gov.uk/

Discrimination ‘denying care home residents hospital access’, study suggests

Elderly people in care homes are being denied access to basic NHS services available to everyone because of discrimination, a major study suggests.

By John Bingham, Social Affairs Editor

6:40AM BST 29 Mar 2012

Analysis of the health records of more than 120,000 older people shows that those in residential care are significantly less likely to use their local hospital than those still living in their own homes.

When it comes to routine appointments, people in care homes are half as likely to visit their local hospital as the rest of the elderly population, research by the Nuffield Trust, a health think tank, shows.

The researchers said it could mean that their needs are being met in their care homes, avoiding the need to use hospitals, or that it shows “discrimination” against the elderly.

Paralympian Baroness Grey-Thompson suffers online abuse over train trouble

Baroness Grey-Thompson says she has attracted a stream of anti-disability abuse after she spoke of having to crawl off a train in London.

 

A newspaper website reporting the story prompted a large number of offensive comments about the peer’s disability.

“There’s a lot of disabled people who wouldn’t be able to deal with it the way I’m able to,” she said.