What I'm not understanding here is why so many posters are talking about assisted dying as opposed to strategies for increasing staff numbers in care homes so that the staff can provide the quality care they want to? Why is death more desirable to people than improving care? Genuine question.
I'd like to know that too, I am all for assisted dying in the right circumstances, and for this trend of letting people die in pain and distress to stop, and also for not keeping people going until the bitter end just because the science exists to do so. But, no one ever wants to talk about how we can improve care at the sharp end, now, or in the near future.
All I can think is that it usually only touches people's lives for a few years if a family member is in need of care, it's important then, but becomes less so, or they've yet to face it in their own lives. And that the care workers aren't really seen as 'good' enough to have an opinion on any of this, when we're the second best placed group to ask what's going wrong and how to fix it, of course the best group to do that are the people using the service, and so many have no voice, and the voice they do have (their carers) is studiously ignored in favour of the care providers (who are making money from it all) and government (who want to spend as little as possible).
@Ledition
You're being really rather offensive towards people who aren't in a position to care for their families, there absolutely are people who 'dump and run' with regards to their relatives that need care (and tbh social workers are probably the worst at that) but overwhelmingly the families I see bringing their relatives onto my unit are probably in worse shape than the person themselves.
Dementia reduces the need for sleep as it changes the brain, the brain is in 'fight or flight' mode for much of the time, which leads to a lot of activity and not all of it safe. Compounding that is also the need for nursing interventions by qualified staff (RMN or RGN) and then care support from care staff. If people need nursing care and they're not being cared for by a qualified nurse, then their needs aren't being met, full stop. No matter how much they're loved or adored, or how kind you are. Nursing care is on the increase due to the same reason pure social care (care assistant led) is, the reasons discussed here. Even down to hoisting someone - there are very good reasons two people need to be present to do that.
My own GM would have needed nursing care had she lived through the stroke she had, I'm glad she didn't and as a family we withdrew intervention to save her and let nature take it's course at 84 and still independent to that point. I'm a carer and was then and my DM a nurse, when we asked about caring at home we were told that she needed 24 hours nursing care (she never made it out of hospital) and that 2 of us, one untrained in nursing, would not meet her needs. It was important to me that I care for my nan - but far more important she got her needs met properly.