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 ?

And many do. 🤷‍♀️

And? Not every case is like your Mum.

😆

The fact that many older people require 24/7 care still doesn't mean every old person requires it. 🤷🏻‍♀️

And many are. This isn’t getting us anywhere, is it?

The number of people requiring 24/7 care from a team of 13 is very small in the context of elderly care in general. There will always be some people who need specialised medical and social care but that doesn’t mean that paid care should be the default for the majority

I quite agree.
In my view, We should be able to do a living will stating what we want to happen and when, signed by a lawyer and a doctor. Then those stages come, our wishes enacted again signed by a lawyer and a doctor. For me, I'll be happy as long as my brain is ok. But I would out in a living will that I do not want to be kept alive with meds once my brain has started to go. I've seen too much of it and it's awful for the person and completely untenable.

How rude to so many people.
So so rude.

Who’s going to provide the unpaid care @Eastangular2000? Let me guess, it’s going to be a woman, isn’t it? She’s probably expected to do all the housework, laundry and cooking too so she won’t have time to work and won’t have her own money. Far better to pay.

No they don't.
It's also important to note however that some much younger people also need 24/7 care, or perhaps just overnight or respite etc.
Social care isn't just for the elderly by any means. I'm sure you know this, but I just wanted to throw it into the thread for people who thinks care= older people.

This isn’t getting us anywhere, is it?

Are you just being contrary cause you have nothing better to do or are you trying to contribute something valid to the thread?

If that’s how you would choose to do it in your family then that’s your lookout. It’s not what I would do or what I have suggested.

@SheepDance fair point, I was thinking more of older people as I recently saw on the news/heard on the radio about bed blocking.

I’d say my contribution is as valid as yours @runjy.

What do you suggest @Eastangular2000?

Can I point out that not all staff in social care work with the elderly?

I’d say my contribution is as valid as yours

another point we will disagree on then! 😆

Completely agree with this. The economics of “more money is needed” just don’t add up, no matter how much you increase taxes, with the proportion of people in society needing care.

A lot of care homes struggle to break even
bsvk in the day cheap property very little regulation you were right but now there overheads are astronomical

I agree.
If a care home charge the average (as per google) of £704 a week (nursing home is higher cost), and has, say, 10 residents, thats £7,400 a week, which sounds like a lot, but the care home also has to:
Pay enough staff to cover a 24/7 rota for care, plus other staff as needed (Wages for around 7 staff would wipe out well over a weeks "income" right away)
Pay insurances, training costs, all other costs incurred with basically being a business.
Provide heat, food, electricity, etc etc for all residents
Provide activities for residents

Thats just off the top of my head. I doubt they are turning over massive profits at all.

SheepDance I think the issue is many care homes don't provide that level of care. The home which we have direct experience of never have enough staff, especially nights and weekends - bells go unanswered for help going to the loo, getting out of bed, washed, dressed, clothes continually going missing, they don't provide activities (they're always going to get an activities co-ordinator but never actually do), maintenance is not kept on top of (the place looks scruffy and ill maintained, random mismatched crockery, cutlery, bed linen, TV's broken for weeks at a time - imagine being in a room 24 hours a day staring at the 4 walls because your TV doesn't work.)

Basic caring things like remembering (or having notes on) how someone takes their tea so they're not brought tea with 2 sugars when they actually don't take sugar.

I have spent hours every day visiting family member in the care home to make sure they're ok and have company, someone to talk to, but also so the staff are aware that family member has people looking out for them. There appear to be many in the home who never, or rarely have visitors, have no-one to advocate for them and make sure they're ok and their care needs are being met.

I actually think making family support more attractive is the way to go. Parent over 65 with care needs, tax credit which can be split between siblings, protected job leave. This way you get people who actually care at fractional basic cost levels.

Hand on heart we need to question why we insist on keeping humans alive in situations you'd be classed as cruel if you made a cat or dog suffer in.

If you dog, couldn't eat or toilet themselves, and had lost all interest in life, didn't recognise its owners, and no longer wagged its tail. You'd be talking to the Vet.
But if your human you get bunged in nappies, fed with a tube or spoon fed, and are expected to keep living.

What's the point?

Wow quite the keep Dinoteeth. I'm hoping no one will kill me off when I've gotten a bit tired, a bit weary but still want to be alive.

It's too open to abuse to put a value on the quality of someones life. You can pretty easily get into eugenics.
As has been pointed out, it's sometimes not only older, previously functioning adults living this way.