• Take care when choosing a care home and try to visit potential homes unannounced.  When you’ve chosen a home, keep an eye on care standards and read any new inspection reports.
• Consider a place in a retirement village or extra care accommodation as an alternative to residential care.  Remember that personal care at home may become free from October 2010.
• When talking to social services about care needs, be very specific and describe the ‘worst case scenario’ rather than being stoical about requirements such as dressing and feeding.
• Watch out for an increase in care costs if you move your relative nearer to your home and into a different local authority area.  Their original authority will still fund the same level of care and if care costs are more expensive in your area, you will have to cover the difference.
• Take advice from a financial consultant that is experienced in dealing with elderly matters and will take all relevant factors into account.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced Labour plans to make personal care free for all elderly people with ‘the highest needs’, regardless of their means. Speaking at Labour’s annual conference, Mr Brown stated that: ‘The people who face the greatest burden are too often those on middle incomes, who have savings which will last a year or two but then they will see their savings slip away. For those with the highest needs we will now offer, in their own homes, free personal care.’ His surprise announcement has been cautiously welcomed by charities and groups that campaign on behalf of the elderly. Concerns are already being raised over how the promised changes – which will cost £400 million per year and affect 350,000 people – will be funded and delivered. And they will only be implemented from September 2010 if Labour wins the next general election in July. Labour claims that the new scheme will be funded by making cuts in other areas of health spending and from the monies saved by councils due to less people requiring residential care. People will qualify for free personal care on the basis of ‘high need’, which is defined as needing 16 or more hours of help each week with basic tasks such as washing and dressing. Local authorities will be responsible for establishing eligibility, which is worrying some experts who consider that it is unwise to give councils a choice between funding a person’s care at home and placing them in residential care that the patient will have to self-fund. Andrew Harrop of Age Concern and Help the Aged comments: ‘It will be essential that councils are properly funded to provide this care so that there is not an incentive for them to push older people into care homes or claim that their needs are not critical enough to warrant free care at home.’

Gordon Brown also announced at the Labour conference that a White Paper on social care reform will be published early in 2010. His speech can be read in full at the Labour party website.

posted by Cheselden Continuing Care at
12:42

Further to the publication of the social care Green Paper, the House of Commons has set up a select committee to investigate ways that residential and domiciliary care will be provided and funded in future. It will also look at how social care services can be personalised, so that individuals have greater control over the care that they receive, for example, in the form of care budgets that they can spend as they wish. The committee is inviting social care organisations and experts to submit written evidence to the committee on how they think these services should work and be funded. The deadline for submission is 1 October 2009. The committee also intends to hold a series of consultation meetings, with the dates still to be confirmed. To find out more, visit Parliament’s Health Committee website.

posted by Cheselden Continuing Care at
13:42

The NHS Information Centre has published a report showing that in 2007-2008, the number of people receiving local authority-funded residential care fell, whilst the number receiving community care services – such as domiciliary care – increased. Entitled ‘Community Care Statistics 2007/8: Referrals, Assessments and Packages of Care for Adults, England’, the report is based on information about adult care services provided by local authorities. Key findings include:

• The number of adults receiving care in the 2007-2008 year was around 1.8 million, which was similar to the number in the previous year 2006-2007.
• 10% fewer adults (around 25,000) received care in local authority-run care homes in 2007-2008 than in the previous year.
• 3% fewer adults received nursing care than in the previous year.
• There was a 2% increase (around 11,000) in first assessments of new care clients in 2007-2008.

Robert Lake of the NHS Information Centre explained that the findings were expected and continue recent trends in care provision, commenting: ‘Fewer people are now receiving council-funded care in a residential or nursing home compared to previous years. This is not unexpected, given the government’s aim for more people to receive care in their own homes.’

The report also gives information on related areas such as direct payments, care plans and the assessment of carers’ needs. It can be downloaded from the NHS Information Centre’s website.

posted by Cheselden Continuing Care at
13:46

The Publicnet website has published the results of a study which looks at the pros and cons of moving into a care home. In particular, the study focuses on the comparative costs of staying at home and of moving into ‘extra-care housing’. Overall, the results indicate that although it is more expensive for residents to move into extra care housing, they end up with a better quality of life and improved social care.

Key findings include:

• Social care costs were much higher for extra care residents than when they lived at home. For example, the home care cost was £89 per person per week in the care home and £40 per week before moving.
• Health service costs were around 50% less after moving into extra care. More residents in care used health services such as nurse consultations, but less frequently. The number of hospital admissions and outpatient appointments also fell after a move into care.
• Accommodation costs were higher after residents moved into extra care, by around £30 per week. However, many people loaned or rented out their former home after moving into care which reduced housing inefficiency.
• Costs incurred by informal carers such as family members (e.g. travelling expenses) were greatly reduced for extra care residents – just £25 per week compared to £80 when living at home.
• The survey calculated that cost to the public sector of housing a resident in extra care – around 75% of the total cost – appears to be proportionally more than the cost of funding care in the person’s own home, but it is hard to make like-for-like comparisons.
• Residents reported a better overall quality of life and an increased feeling that their needs were being met after moving into care. In particular, two thirds of residents felt that they had a good social life in care and felt safe, whereas half had felt isolated and lonely when they lived in their own homes.

You can read the full report on the survey at the Publicnet website.

posted by Cheselden Continuing Care at
12:29