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 ?

Of course if parents and offspring pooled their resources in terms of housing then a lot more people would be able to afford places that would allow them to care for their parents and it would also reduce intergenerational inequality.

Such places would also need to exist in areas where people are able to live, ie as well as being of suitable size and with the necessary facilities, they would also have to be in the vicinity of schools, childcare and, for those whose work isn't remote, jobs. There is no point pretending that we currently have anything like the societal structures necessary to facilitate this, especially given that most people don't actually have a great many children. The elderly now had what, 2.4 each?

Yes birth rates have plummeted & people often live far away from families. It's unrealistic to expect people to care for their own parents, many would want too but won't have the resources or time.

People can spend the last 10 years of their lives with huge care needs. How will this be funded ?

Over thirty years of nursing, many as a district nurse tells me that too many people live too long. At great expense. Cure this, cure that. Many oncologists for example will tell you they wouldn't put their own family through challenging and often futile treatment they are expected to give to some patients.
Add that to thousands of frail elderly insisting in staying in unsuitable living accommodation, falling about all over the place, refusing to pay for carers and in and out of A&E like a revolving door.
I was the only patient in a four bedded bay in hospital recently that wasn't waiting for discharge due to social care issues. That, after a 24 hour wait in A&E to get a bed where young diabetics lay on the floor with infusions due to overcrowding.

I said upthread a wealth tax, increased CGT, increased IHT

Add that to thousands of frail elderly insisting in staying in unsuitable living accommodation, falling about all over the place, refusing to pay for carers and in and out of A&E like a revolving door.

Yeah that needs fucking off. It is not an indulgence we are going to be able to retain for long.

This!!! It sounds awful but people are heavily medicated to draw out their already suffering life. Elderly people who have lived a long fulfilling life are in vegetated states but pumped with medicines to keep then alive. It's basically torture in my eyes

And it goes back to the issue of consent. People in that state have had it imposed on them. We need to talk about whether facilitating that as an alternative to death ought to be such a default assumption and, which will be more difficult, how best to avoid that happening.

But how would you do it? At what point do you deny someone with capacity their autonomy?

Pay and training is the main one, along with better staff:patient ratios. There are care homes that have 1 carer to 15 or 20 complex residents.

For those who say better pay. I don't disagree, for all the reasons given, but much of care ( not only the elderly but of some children and those with disabilities and vulnerabilities) is paid for through the government. There is little or no scope for more pay

They exist all over. They are the large houses that people are so keen on the elderly downsizing from. A 4 bed is easily large enough for the average family to also care for an elderly parent.

But it takes a lot of people care for an elderly person 24/7. One person can’t do it. I know because I tried.

It's not as simple as that. Many dependent elderly people have dementia or complex conditions which require constant monitoring and specialist nursing equipment such as airbeds, hoisting and bathing equipment, wound dressings, pressure area monitoring and care, catheter care, continence care, specialist feeding, complex medication regimes etc. It's not just having granny sitting in the corner doing crochet.

Surely it depends on the person/condition? Not every elderly person needs a handful of staff to care for them

Then they're probably the ones who are independent/semi independent. Even the semi independent are at increased risk of frequent falls.

Surely keeping people out of hospital due to things like falls, dehydration, etc would more than cover the cost of a slight wage increase? When you factor in things like increased length of stay due to social care demands.

Yes, no staff at all is so much better isn't it 🙄

If we want to keep people going long after their natural lifespan then we need to be prepared to pay for it. Depriving children and the working age population of hospital care because there's no beds is false economy. Many younger people can't work due to not being able to have surgery or treatments. This means they're not paying tax and may be having to claim benefits. Can't have it both ways unfortunately. Priorities are all skewed now.

They do if they need 24/7 care.

But those people are very much in the minority

Having worked in the nhs and social care I don't disagree.... but doesn't happen

Not really. My mum went from being semi independent to needing 24/7 care very quickly. As I said earlier, there were 13 people providing her care by the time it became untenable for her to stay at home.

No there's half a million people in care homes. It's a lot but hidden from view, many people have very complex needs but can't get a bed in more specialist units.

They do if they need 24/7 care.

As I said not every elderly person needs 24/7 care.