Latest News from Everycare
More than 1,400 NHS dementia patients well enough to go home at Christmas will be stranded in hospital, warns the Alzheimers’s Society.
Lack of social care funding ‘turning wards into waiting rooms’ as figures shows dementia patients are delayed up to 10 times longer than hospital patients without the condition
More than 1,400 people with dementia who are well enough to go home will be stranded in hospital on Christmas Day, a charity has warned.
The Alzheimer’s Society said the lack of social care funding was “turning wards into waiting rooms” as an investigation they carried out revealed dementia patients were delayed up to 10 times longer than patients without the condition.
To read more visit the Independent news website
Simple improvements to people’s homes can play a larger role in relieving the pressure on social care and cutting costs by millions of pounds a year.
More than 90 per cent of older people in England live in general housing, rather than specialist housing but the UK’s housing stock is often not accessible or not adapted to meet the basic needs of those over the age of 65 or with a disability. Far too many people try to navigate steep stairs and use inaccessible showers when simple home improvements could let people live independently in their home for longer.
Freedom to go to toilet alone
Rachael Docking, the Centre for Ageing Better’s senior evidence manager says by installing low-cost equipment like handrails in homes early on, hundreds of thousands of older people could live happier, more independent lives and could “carry out basic daily tasks like going to the toilet for themselves. It could also save our pressured health and social care services a huge amount of unnecessary costs and time.”
The ‘Room to Improve’ report, published by the Centre for Ageing Better, argues small changes to homes earlier on must be a priority to prevent or delay people’s use of NHS and social care.
Some minor home adaptations and home repairs can lead to savings of at least £500 million each year to the NHS and social care services through a 26 per cent reduction in falls. Falls account for over four million hospital bed days a year in England alone.
To read more about the report visit the homecare website.
Live-in care is an excellent choice for later life care but it isn’t right for everyone. Here we look at five key questions that can help you decide if it is right for you.
Live-in care provides many benefits including:
- 1 to 1 care
- Helping clients maintain their social life, hobbies and clubs
- Ensuring that the health of the client is as optimum as possible
- Keeping clients in a familiar place
- Enabling clients to remain with partners and pets
- Providing an affordable alternative to residential care
When you are planning later life care you should look at all of the different options available to you as an educated choice is the best choice. However, it may be that your preferred care is to stay in your own home and have a professional live-in carer but you want to feel completely sure that it will be right for you. To help you with this important decision, check out the five key questions to ask yourself when considering is live-in care suitable – visit the Live In Care Hub website.
A new service was launched in September which aims to prevent further fractures and raise awareness of general bone health. The Fracture Liaison Service now operates at Eastbourne District General Hospital and the Conquest Hospital in Hastings for patients who are registered with a GP across the East Sussex Better Together patch.
Specially trained ‘fracture liaison bone health’ nurses will identify eligible patients on a proactive case-finding basis when they attend the fracture clinic, x-ray or trauma wards. They will then assess them and work with GPs, orthopaedics, rheumatology and other departments to decide on and make recommendations on appropriate treatment options.
To find out more visit the East Sussex Better Together website.
