GPs to stop providing care to residents in care homes

[hiddenhome2]

Guardian link here

I work in a care home and I'm finding this quite shocking.

I don't know any doctors who run care homes. About 20 years ago, yes, I believe some doctors did buy care homes.

Nowadays, it's all big companies.

lostinyonkers can you find me any GMC registered doctors who are CEO/MD of a care home to back up that claim?

I am constantly puzzled why so much effort is put into medicines that extend life but that's a separate thread.

Yes, indeed. Artificially extending people's lives can causes a great deal of suffering unfortunately

sillyflag a very quick google brings up one example for you...

Dr Chai Patel CBE FRCP

Dr Pete Calveley

"Ann" works as an end of life carer and lives in her car because she cant afford the deposit on a flat.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03hmfn9

Bloody hell, that's grim for that poor woman

Dr Chai Patel has no licence to practice, and Dr Pete Calveley isn't GMC registered.

Two people who've clearly career changed does not mean a lot of for profit care homes ARE run by consortiums of doctors.

YY Hidden Care workers need to be paid more. Its a job where there is much responsibility on their shoulders and the wage should reflect that.

Oh my word. OP did you actually read the article? The vote was to sort out proper funding arrangements, either by properly funding GPs to do this work, or having it done by someone else. No-one is suggesting that those in care homes won't have access to a doctor.

UK General practice is on its knees and those in care homes are currently not getting good care in many areas because it isn't properly funded. Care home owners make a fortune, partly by paying their staff peanuts as has been already mentioned. Many patients in residential homes go out with family to have their hair cut on outings, yet they ask the GP to visit. How does that make sense.

And......breathe.....

please remember that the media is not neutral and the govt is engaged in a systematic attempts to poison public opinion against doctors.

I have been hearing a lot on the radio recently about how expensive care homes are - up to £1k a week in some instances - and I can't for the life of me work out where all that money goes - surely not to the staff? Is it really to the owners?

Wall Street buys 27 care homes across UK.
International interest in the UK's "Grey" (elderly) market is very hot and high yielding.

Some Hedge funds even buy the owner out, then lease it back to them! Surely that is the most ridiculous cost inefficient practice.

Average annual cost on staff per resident is £18-19k

Average annual rent per resident is £29-39k.

Basing on this FT article and what I've read elsewhere, Wall street would not be on heat for care homes unless they were highly lucrative.

www.ft.com/cms/s/2/6da9f5bc-f08d-11e3-8f3d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3zTKAoeEC

Basically our right-wing Gvnt (This includes Tony Blair and new Labour btw) loves to screw everyone in the Uk over so that a few overseas bankers can get incredibly wealthy.

I don't understand why crucial services like care homes aren't nationally owned. Rent would go direct to the gvnt who would then use it pay staff and wealth would be shared, not creamed off. Rent wld be lower, staff paid higher. Sorted.

I'll vote for you ophelia

Sounds good to me Ophelia

I am with ophelia

That makes sense 0phelia ! Care homes being private as the norm makes no more sense than hospitals and schools being all/ mostly private...

My DGma (late eighties) was in hospital for an extended period of time (broken pelvis) and at the start she was on complete bed rest, using a bed pan, being washed in bed etc. on opiates and goodness knows what else. Then obviously when she started walking (gutter frame, crutch, stick) she needed someone with her just to be safe.

That was on an intermediate care ward and she was the easiest one on the ward!

When she was discharged she was pretty much back to normal, went straight home, no carers needed or anything (just physio appointments, and an extra rail on the stairs and bath). Some of the others being discharged didn't really seem fit to go home at all - they were having hoists and all sorts put in. They needed more support coming out of hospital than they did going in, and it must be hard for GPs to cover that.

The care home workload has changed out of all recognition, even in the 10 years I have been a GP. Homes are far larger and care for patients who would never been discharged from hospital a few years ago. Also, there are just far more very frail people with complex medical conditions. GPs are being expected to run care homes that are actually the equivalent of a community hospital in between doing all their other work and for the same money that they get for any other patient - about £120/year (the average consultation rate per person is 5 per year but many care home patients need visits several times per week). Because it is not properly funded, practices cannot afford to employ enough GPs to do the work. It is not safe - either for care home patients or for the people I actually worry about more - frail elderly people living in their own houses.

Looking after elderly people with complex medical needs is one of the most satisfying parts of being a GP, but also one of the most challenging. It cannot be done as it is done now - crammed between morning and afternoon surgeries, home visits and mountains and mountains of paperwork. The current situation is dangerous and a major reason why GPs are leaving the profession in droves. The stress of constantly worrying about making a mistake and the workload are unbearable.

The living wage is coming in too, so carers will be paid more and care home owners will have to find the money for this.

Do carers who work unsociable hours get paid more? Because according to my neighbour that's how retail stores are going to get around it. Unsociable pay rates are going to be stopped, meaning those workers may actually be worse off when the new minimum wage (I'm not calling it the Living Wage, they can fuck off with that) comes in.

Care homes aren't that lucrative as going concerns.

They're worth having because they're a nice secure investment, with guaranteed returns as heavily-subsidised, public-funded, growing-in-value land banks. Giving dodgy private emerging 'health-social-care' monoliths a very secure foothold in the soon-to-be-fully-privatised health service.

Taking care home residents out of NHS primary care is the thin end of the privatisation wedge. But it'll have to happen, or the dodgy care homes will take the GPs down well before the rest of the NHS goes Kaput

(By dodgy I don't mean hiddenhome or any of the other dedicated frontline staff. I mean the private equity investors and the corporate stratgisers)

No, the staff don't receive different rates of pay for different shifts. It's just minimum wage and double time on Xmas day.

I don't understand why crucial services like care homes aren't nationally owned. Rent would go direct to the gvnt who would then use it pay staff and wealth would be shared, not creamed off. Rent wld be lower, staff paid higher. Sorted.

The argument is that it's cheaper for the state to pay for private homes rather than provide it's own. That's why most of the state run homes and convalescent/geriatric hospitals were closed down.

What I really can't understand is how they could have been more expensive under state ownership without profit motive. There must have been some huge overheads, overpaid staff, inefficiency and/or corruption if the state can't provide the service cheaper than the private sector.

Care homes in this country are going bust because even though they oay derisory wages to very dedicated and caring staff their outgoings exceed their income due to caps on local authority funding for care home places.

This is why self funding patients get places so quickly - they essentially subsidise those the LA are paying for.

GPs are not saying they won't visit care homes they just want paid properly for doing so to allow them to resource their service properly.

From personally experience a huge amount of ass covering goes on both in care homes and with residential in home carers. This is not the fault of the staff involved but is due to societal pressure and fear of being sued. I have one elderly relative in a care home and have had two looked after by home care - the number of GP visits that were requested was astonishing.

Every time my gran got a new issue eg a minor rash the GP would called to come out as an emergency. When I intervened (I'm a doctor but not a GP) to indicate that perhaps the problem wasn't urgent and could wait until the next time she needed to see the GP it was implied that I was neglecting a vulnerable adult. At one point the poor GP was going out two or three times a week to see her at home.

Yet the practice get paid the same to look after her as me and I last went to the GP in November 2012.