What to do about future of care in the UK?

[Flawedperfection]

I just wrote a v long post which I lost due to phone battery fading!

In a nutshell, what do we do when there are no longer any carers or anyone willing/able to care for our elderly and those in need of support?

I currently work for a care provider in a finance/admin role and it’s scary how: understaffed we and many other care providers in the area are; few people want to actually work in care and ;few younger people want to do it, and will only do so if threatened by sanctions etc.

In my company, most carers are aged between mid-40s and late 50s.

I previously worked in care on and off for much of my working life partly because (not going to lie) I couldn’t find anything else and was over or under qualified for other career paths. I know it’s crap in many ways: the pay, the hours and working conditions and the personal care is not for the squeamish (this was my issue!), but how do you get people to want to work in care?

Seriously, what do we do when the numbers fail to tally: many people in need, too few carers? Do people go off to hospitals long stay? But we also have a nursing recruitment crisis…

And before anyone suggests that I rejoin the carer ranks, as said I’ve done it before (for years), and it wasn’t for me. That’s kind of my point- no one really wants to do it!

Who decides what constitutes an acceptable "quality of life"?

The owner of that life. Nobody else gets a say.

@ralanne

There's a difference between refusing interventions and allowing nature to take its course, which is possible just now, and assisted suicide, which was being presented as an answer to the staff shortages in elderly care.

The problem is that wishes to refuse interventions and allow nature to take its course aren't always honoured now even when they've been explicitly spelled out. There's also often an assumption that this is the right thing to do even when the patient hasn't given an indication of their wishes. That's not a good thing. We need to talk about consent.

@Blossomtoes

If you want to end your life, that is your decision. I wouldn't want you to suffer. Equally, I wouldn't want anyone else to be compelled to assist with taking a human life.

You're right, I shouldn't presume what you want, but personally I wouldn't want anyone to feel they had to end their life because of staff shortages or because they were a burden.

I wouldn't want anyone to be killed because they there was no one to look after them or because someone else had decided that their life was not worth living. We are talking about young learning disabled people here as well as older people, who have many years left, and the terminally ill.

In cases where someone has stated an advance intention, I think it's very difficult to get informed consent. At the point at which someone has lost the capacity to articulate their wishes, they may have changed their mind. This is not just a theoretical position. I have been at the bedside and witnessed this play out.

For these reasons, I am against assisted suicide, I make no apology for that, and I will continue to speak against it, and I hope it will never become law.

I could really see that if/when AS happens, people like me will be just as poorly trained, paid, treated and respected to carry it out, with no support for the workforce doing it and seen as a job that only someone who can't do any better does - it'll just be trading roles really.

I really do believe in AS and advance directives being the right thing to introduce, I have seen and been a part of (because of my job) keeping people alive with very little quality of life, to the point where I've felt relief when someone dies because it's a release for them, as have their families. It's horrible watching another human (well, several humans) 'live' like that. You either crack or become desensitised, because there is no support, we're just a resented, essential part of it all.

But as a pp articulated, suggesting it's the answer to the problems we're seeing now, when it's not even possible option right now, isn't addressing the actual problems, that people are suffering now with a lack of availability of good care that values all people, because ultimately most at least subconsciously believe that not all people are worth valuing.

Hopefully artificial intelligence and robots will be able to solve the care problem. Once we get to the point where AI is able to learn and perform practical care skills better than humans we will see the landscape change very quickly. Obviously previously manual work is already being automated, the process has been ongoing for a thousand years or more, but the rate of change is getting ever faster.

We'd probably need to have realistic-looking robots in the care sector for people to feel comfortable. There will come a time when robots can be created to look and feel and behave exactly like a real person. Once this happens, combined with advanced AI, most human jobs will be able to be done better by robots than by humans - we're effectively making ourselves obsolete.

I hope I’m long dead before that happens @Nicholethejewellery.

@Nicholethejewellery robots will never replace nurses or doctors, they will never be able to negotiate the way humans do not when they are programmed to work and behave in a particular way. Robots will never have empathy or show compassion, I agree they could be a possible answer to social care problems, they could help with washing and dressing, medication and meals and could all be controlled by a central office with helplines.

@AlaskaThunderfuckHiiiiiiiii

Why do you think that if robots can't show empathy and compassion or negotiate the way humans can, that they'd be a solution to social care issues?
I spend a lot of my time at work negotiating with people to take medication, get washed, get dressed (appropriately or at all) or to eat/drink. I agree that robots would lack certain characteristics that are needed when dealing with people, but disagree that these characteristics are not needed in social care - they are the very heart of it.

AI would be great. But whether the robot and the demented could get on is another question.

@Maverickess I completely agree and so AI won’t replace those sectors but it could be the answer to helping those who need help with ADLs, this may then free up some people who could then visit so give human contact instead of being held back by the time constraints of timed client visits

[quote AlaskaThunderfuckHiiiiiiiii]@Maverickess I completely agree and so AI won’t replace those sectors but it could be the answer to helping those who need help with ADLs, this may then free up some people who could then visit so give human contact instead of being held back by the time constraints of timed client visits[/quote]
Yes, there's a positive application there, extending what is already on offer in the way of technology to provide practical support to someone with needs that can be met adequately with machines and robots.
Unfortunately though, as I've said on similar threads about AI and it's application to caring for people, I think the cost of setting it up and maintenance would be a barrier - especially if you can't afford it yourself, and I could forsee (if attitudes and systems stay the same as they are wrt funding, provision etc) some becoming more isolated as they rely on technology for day to day living tasks, and as those tasks are met, the social side of it is forgotten, the people freed up by not having timed visits etc will not be deployed for human contact, they'll be deployed where AI can't fill in.
I could forsee someone being given a robot and a number to call if something goes wrong and that's it.

Of course the idea that we could free up people to provide the more human needs is a lovely one, but,
the government, society and individuals already don't want to pay for the inadequate care system we do have, it's part of the reason it's inadequate, the pay and conditions for the people delivering the care aren't attractive enough and in all honesty, off putting to many, and that's why there's a shortage. I honestly can't see care providers or local government spending on both AI and human contact, to improve the standard of care. They have a fairly simple answer to that already - improve pay, training and conditions, there's no will to though unfortunately.