Category Archives: Older care
GPs to visit elderly in care homes under new contract plans
Doctors will be required to make regular visits to nursing homes to check on elderly patients, under plans for a sweeping overhaul of the way GPs work.
Ministers want to impose a new legal duty on doctors to take responsibility for their patients’ care at evenings and weekends, and are to push their case in talks with the medical profession over the next six months.
The Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, is said to be deeply concerned about poor standards of care for patients outside hospitals and is determined to enforce a return to the culture of family doctoring.
He is understood to be ready for a direct confrontation with the doctors’ union, the British Medical Association, over reforms to GPs’ contracts if it is necessary to deliver more convenient and reliable services for patients.
Surge in elderly abuse and neglect claims
Sharp rise in reports of suspected care abuse
Source : Sean O’Connor \ Age UK
New figures from the Health and Social Care Information Centre reveal a steep increase in the number of reports of suspected abuse of older people.
In the last year there has been a 28.4% increase in alerts made to councils about abuse to older people.
The newest set of data from the Health and Social Care Information Centre emphasise the need for greater accountability for those providing care in the UK.
With the Care Bill in the committee stage of its parliamentary journey, the new data reveals the extent of the worries around abuse in the UK.
In 2012-13 local authorities received 173,000 alerts relating to the abuse of adults and took 112,000 of these forward as adult safeguarding referrals:
- 60% of these concerned people aged 65 and over
- Of these over 26% related to people aged 85 and over
- Nearly 22% to those aged 75-84 and almost 12% to those aged 65-74
- The remaining 40% of alerts concerned adults of working age (18-64)
Over a quarter of referrals relating to people aged 65 and over (25.8%) related to suspicions of physical abuse and over a third (35.6%) to cases of neglect. In addition to these however just over 18% of cases were of financial abuse, a form of abuse that is often overlooked.
Norfolk County Council’s social care cuts will hit elderly and disabled
Norfolk County Council’s proposed social care spending cuts will hit the most vulnerable, including the elderly.
Dan Grimmer Monday, September 30, 2013
12:34 PM
But they insist Norfolk County Council has to make ends meet, even if that means some 15,000 people who get care from the council have to see changes to services.
Social care changes are among some of the most major shake-ups proposed in the county council’s consultation to save £140m over the next four years.
Among controversial proposals are suggestions that £12m could be saved over the next three years by limiting what people can spend personal budgets on.
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