15 minute care calls for elderly

[mytartanscarf]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2856962/Scandal-elderly-visited-50-carers-year-Lack-money-staff-organisation-revealed-damning-report.html

I work in this field and it is awful.

At the same time I can see how the costs must be absolutely crippling.

What do people think?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2856962/Scandal-elderly-visited-50-carers-year-Lack-money-staff-organisation-revealed-damning-report.html

Terrible. They need to increase wages to reduce staff turnover and get rid of zero hours contracts. Cut foreign aid to pay for it.

Clearly this can’t go on, but what I don’t understand is how it might have got worse.

I can remember a time when many of our care workers were from the EU (and we are told our NHS would collapse if not for foreign workers), so are they initially going into care work, and then moving on when they find something better?

And if local MONEY is the problem, why does Labour currently tell us that they can cut £500 million from the Communities and Local Government Budget from 2016/7 to go to the front line, when all these local authorities we are told we need to DEVOLVE MORE POWER TO, currently are clueless how to save that money themselves?

We need to review the Zero Hours contracts in this profession and raise the wages of care workers, as many other front line staff; the problem being is that many taxpayers aren’t getting salary rises either – so what a shame when the money was there, according to this link, the ‘few’ like consultants and GP’s, not the NHS ‘many’ at the bottom of the pay scale, got a huge slice of the record increase in the NHS budget.

May 2007; “Blair's legacy: Health”
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4555344.stm

“No government has ever invested more in the health service than Labour under Blair and yet the NHS is mired in deficits with patients taking to the streets to prevent the closure of their local hospitals.”

“Joyce Robins, of Patient Concern, said: "I feel sorry for Blair, but the money has been wasted."

“This seems to be the crux of the issue. The public was promised record amounts of money would flow into the NHS. And so it has.”

“But the problem is it has not necessarily gone where many would expect.”

“Once pay hikes - consultants and GPs have both received lucrative increases - covering for deficits and rising drug costs are taken into account, the 7% budget increases actually equate to about 2% for services, according to the King's Fund.”

”Surveys have repeatedly shown that when asked what they think of the NHS people reply it is in crisis.”

So if Labour keeps the NHS in ‘crisis’ when money is no object, how can they manage it on a tight budget, UNLESS they AGAIN keep raising a broad range of taxes (including Council Tax), which hardly helps the 'cost of living crisis'.

One of my elderly clients waited five hours for an urgent ambulance to transport them to hospital today. The client wasn't in the most urgent category, but even so

Sometimes we don't even have 15 minutes to care for somebody (care home). Weekly baths don't get done and fortified drinks are given to people instead of meals if the carers don't have time to feed everybody, as it takes less time to give a drink than it does to feed somebody food

People are put into bed starting at 3 in the afternoon as there are so many to help and we finish at 9pm. Only three staff on overnight. I didn't get all the morning drugs out this morning, so had to give them at lunchtime instead. First time in 20 years that's happened.

If the public really knew what went on, there'd be a national outcry. Elderly care is a joke in this country.

Over the last several years, there are several million more people using the NHS, currently 900,000 more GP appointment requests a year - exactly what can we realistically expect across society even with 'real' increases in spending we are seeing now?

I recently heard Andy Burnham going on about the log jam of beds leaving elderly in hospital but;

newleftreview.org/II/62/tony-wood-good-riddance-to-new-labour

“The 2000 NHS Act, meanwhile, called for a ‘mixed economy’ in healthcare, introducing ‘Independent Sector Treatment Centres’ to compete with the public sector in low-risk elective surgery, and expanding the role of private companies in primary care and community health. The same year a Concordat was signed making the use of public funds for operations in private hospitals a normal, rather than exceptional, practice.”

“What has been the impact of these changes? Though NHS funding rose significantly after 2000—on average, 7 per cent a year in real terms—the costs of creating and operating the internal market now consume 10 per cent of the total NHS budget; sizeable sums have gone on the expansion of new managerial layers.” [26]

“The need for public healthcare providers to focus on the bottom line has brought a damaging combination of staff cuts, dilution of the skill mix, and faster through-put of patients; drives to reduce waiting times have meant a rise in the number of readmissions, while cost-cutting in subcontracted services has brought declining standards of hygiene. “

“The characteristic paradox of New Labour’s record in healthcare is that, by 2008, there were 13,000 fewer general and acute beds than in 1999, while a ‘burgeoning market of alternative providers’ has developed, ready to draw personnel and resources away from the NHS.”

I know the coalition has been in power for nearly 5-years, but the population has grown a lot every year with few provisions made - and more of us are getting older and needing care - but wouldn't it have been useful FOR ONCE, if Labour handed over to the Coalition a ministry/department 'fit for purpose' to build upon, rather than have to reform????