Who will take responsibility for rolling out ‘telecare’?
Despite the government’s enthusiasm for telecare, many GPs will be too busy trying to commission to learn how to do it
Last week, I expressed my disappointment with the King’s Fund’s International Telehealth and Telecare Conference. I am so upset that I am returning to the subject again.
For starters, I was amazed that there were only three GPs present. I found this strange, as telecare is likely to change the way GPs treat patients for ever. Or do GPs consider telehealth as just another irritating technology, like electronic patient records and email, which will go away if you ignore them long enough?
One speaker involved in the project said that GPs were divided between those who were interested, those who were not sure and those who didn’t want to know. One GP claimed that telecare increased patient anxiety and workload for GPs.
800,000 vulnerable elderly fighting to stay in their homes
Some 800,000 vulnerable elderly people are struggling to live in their own homes without any state-provided home help, say campaigners who argue the most vulnerable in society are being “catastrophically let down” by social services
By Stephen Adams, Medical Correspondent
6:30AM BST 16 Apr 2012
Councils have slashed spending on social care in the last few years, as Westminster has cut local authority funding.
Now more than four in five councils (82 per cent) will only fund home help for people with substantial or critical care needs, up from about half in 2005, according to official figures.
The result is that around 800,000 older people out of two million with care needs – many with dementia – are trying to live without any state-provided care, according to the charity Age UK.
It has joined forces with the British Geriatrics Society to lobby ministers for higher funding for social care services.
Thousands of carers missing out on help
“The carers of the UK should not be left to suffer in silence.”
Thousands of carers missing out on help
12:00pm Sunday 15th April 2012 in News By Julian Robinson , Eastleigh Chief Reporter
TENS of thousands of carers in Hampshire are putting their health at risk because they are unaware of respite services available to them, research has revealed.
Many of those who look after their sick, disabled or elderly relatives don’t realise they are entitled to specialist support – simply because they are unpaid.
