How do we solve the social care crisis ?

[Worriedddd]

We have complex needs patients being stuck in hospital for up to 2 years. Some even more they are ready to leave just there's no social care placements and they can't get the right staff anyway. For minimum wage carers will have support people with very challenging needs. There is high risk of assault in many care settings employers don't offer the right training like de-escalation and breakway. . You could get more money working for Lidl and aldi. Even with immigration people leave and find another job. What's the solution to this ?

I do think we should have more discussions about death and ‘a good death.’ A good death to me would be in my own bed (home/care home wherever) with my family there and no fuss. I hope there is an advance directive I can have that when I no longer have a quality of life I deem acceptable that no medical treatment will be given, all medications except those to prevent symptoms will be stopped and hopefully pneumonia will take me quickly. For me an unacceptable life would be when I no longer recognise those I love, cannot eat independently (no feeding tube for me) or cannot mobilise with minimal help (no hoist transfer to wheelchair.)

In my answer above with the big council run care homes everyone would have an advance directive done on admission and it would be reviewed yearly (by that GP that visits fortnightly!) Also, people could stay at home with carers if they wanted but they would have to privately fund. There would also be council run sheltered accommodation for that stage between home and care home (also easy for district nurses/carers to work as all on one site. Maybe attached to the care home!)

I'm not paid min wage I'm a RN but yes care assistants will be expected to put up with this for min wage no sick pay , limited training , equipment and then they wonder why we can't find placements for patients.

As I said, i think family should be the default with state support as the secondary option. Obviously if the parent is too frail or has passed away then the state would need to step in. I just don't think the state should be the default.

I don't think pay scales like the NHS will help. The NHS are struggling to recruit care assistants despite having training, pay scales and career progression. It's a difficult job. Physically and emotionally draining. Very few people want to do it.

When families are obliged to care for the elderly/ children, the burden falls on women. Look at what happened with Covid and homeschooling. All this would do is force more women out of the workforce and lower tax receipts further.

What care for you provide for family @Eastangular2000

Life is tricky. These are all things that everyone should consider when making life choices. The default now for many people seems to be that 'society' should take care of everything and parents and families have no greater responsibility to each other than anyone else. I disagree with that stand point.

I am not suggesting it as a tax raising measure!

If you don’t agree with euthanasia what would your suggestion be on not keeping people alive?

That would be euthanasia

The issue is people don’t choose to have parents.

People choose to have kids. Not the other way around, so of course a parent is responsibile for caring for children they chose to have.

i didn’t choose to be born, so it’s a bit unfair to say that looking after my parents is my responsibility in later life no?

This is how it used to be. It was rare to see a private elderly care home.
Most of them were shut in the 80's and 90's to allow private care homes to take over

Not prolonging life and euthanasia are quite different things. Not aggressively treating pneumonia in a 95 year old is not euthanasia but may result in them dying.

This, history of dementia in my family and it would of been much kinder to let nature take it's course rather than endless interventions and antibiotics when there is no quality of life left.

We need rehabilitation places for those who are medically fit but still needing support. These should have onsite facilities for re enablement and getting people back home.

More elderly apartments and homes should be being built. With adaptions inbuilt and seem less so support is available sooner. These should be have onsite assistance teams available for example to help someone up who has fallen but isn't hurt.
These should be sold as a positive move for people over retirement age and potentially incentivised too.
This frees up housing for families too.

Better wages and carer prospects for carers. Being a carer should be being sold as a desirable career. With clear career progression. Carers people within schools and colleges will always try and get students to aim higher than a career in care. We need the right people to work in care.

People need to accept that care costs are going to have to dramatically rise. It's just a fact. Decent care costs a lot of money. NOBODY is making huge profits off care. Most care and nursing homes are just surviving now. The days where care was profitable are long gone.

Of course no one chose to be born but we all were and we all have parents so it's a bit of a moot point really. (before anyone jumps on me, by 'we all have parents' I mean that everyone who exists has to have had parents in one form or another, not that we all have living parents right now).

That’s not acceptable at all.
No easy answers.
Training around violent and potentially dangerous patients/ clients ought to be essential.

Not prolonging life and euthanasia are quite different things. Not aggressively treating pneumonia in a 95 year old is not euthanasia but may result in them dying.
Why is letting someone die slowly drowning on their own bodily fluids, unable to breathe, cough or swallow preferable to euthanasia?

I used to be pro elective euthanasia; but looking at these kinds of threads I think society is heading towards accepting it for the wrong reasons, with bad motives, and its going to be grim.

The end result is the same

@Eastangular2000 "These are all things that everyone should consider when making life choices. The default now for many people seems to be that 'society' should take care of everything and parents and families have no greater responsibility to each other than anyone else. I disagree with that stand point"

Rightio! So before anyone contemplates having children, make sure they have enough money stashed away for 60-80 years. To support multiple humans. Just in case one of them is never able to work and financially support themselves due to worst case scenario of needing to be a life long family carer. Ooh and possibly needing to personally finance more carers cos cutting yourself in half isn't possible.

Gosh that's a stretch. I thought a nest egg needed for school fees was eye watering!

more funding for a start.

the problem is we are a country that has got a lot poorer, while there are fewer workers to DO the caring (leaving the EU, etc), and the economy is tanking due to mismanagement and a global changing landscape.

unfortunately, for the last 20+ years, our government has almost exclusively used the "future tax payers will pay for it" as a technique. PFI etc was the start. More recently, covid, paying for brexit, dealing with the impact of the russian invasion etc.

Unfortunately taxing future taxpayers now isn't working - everyone has already cut and cut and cut.. you cannot cut or push it down the road another 10 years, another 15 years

It will get REALLY bad in another 10 years when the current wave of people on the cusp of pension age start to hit retirement age. they won't be able to afford to retire.

Long gone will be the days of folk retiring on fairly low incomes at the age of 55-60, going off on cruises and releasing their bog standard family home for £600k in equity release.

the current crop of "just about to retire" folk haven't earned enough, or put enough behind them in savings or pensions vehicles...

The paramid is basically about to topple,and what we've seen so far have only been the treamours.

future tax payers cannot fund all of this - the NHS, social care, on top of drowning in student debt, having no extra capacity to pick up extra work due to house prices / stamp duty holidays meaning 2 able bodied working adults isn't even enough to fund a comfortable life for most families...

it was all going to crumble at some point. the real problem is going to be for the kids and teens about to enter the world of work/independant livign into that scenario. the only way thye are not going to be truly FUCKED is if you have an inheritance from mum and dad.

I didn't say it was preferable, I said it was not the same.

If part of the problem is lack of funding/ money, it hardly makes sense to push half the workforce out into unpaid carer roles.

We really aren’t
Those who are too thick or too selfish to get a vaccine to help ensure those they don’t care for die, aren’t good carers. They should have never been in role to begin with.

We really are.

People's high principles on the issue didn't lead to there being a sufficient supply of vaccinated carers to replace the unvaccinated ones who lost their jobs. That, in turn, led to more bed blocking, which has worsened the problems the NHS were already having and we have all suffered because of it.

Decent pay and conditions for care workers and improved benefits and support for people who care for friends/family. Carers allowance is a disgrace.

How do you suggest people afford life long care with how expensive life is now when Carers Allowance is £64 a week?