5. Reform social care
by Department of Health on 21 June 2010 | 4 commentsEnable people needing care to be treated with dignity and respect; reform the system of social care to provide much more control to individuals and their carers, easing the cost burden that they and their families face
Actions: Reform funding of social care system | Extend roll-out of health and social care personal budgets | Improve access to respite care | Remove barriers between health and social care funding | Support work of local authorities and providers
5.1 Reform funding of the social care system
i. Establish a commission on the funding of long-term care to consider a range of ideas, including both (a) a voluntary insurance scheme to protect the assets of those who go into residential care, and (b) a partnership scheme – (Start Jul 2010 – end Jul 2011)
ii. Publish vision for social care reform setting out ambitions for greater independence and choice for users of social care – (Start Nov 2010)
iii. Publish White Paper on social care – (Start Oct 2011)
iv. Introduce legislation – (Start Nov 2011)
5.2 Extend the greater roll-out of health and social care personal budgets to give people and their carers more control and purchasing power
i. Agree new milestone for roll-out of social care personal budgets with ADASS/LGA – (Start Apr 2011)
ii. Set up additional personal health budget pilot sites, and investigate how personal health budgets and personal budgets for social care can be joined together – (Start Jul 2010 – end Oct 2012)
iii. Evaluate results from pilots and develop proposals for national implementation – (Start Oct 2012)
5.3 Improve access to respite care by using direct payments to carers and better community-based provision
i. Publish a re-focused carers’ strategy – (Start Apr 2011)
5.4 Remove barriers between health and social care funding to incentivise preventative action
i. Introduce new post-discharge tariff requiring NHS and social care joint working to manage 30-day hospital discharge and reduce re-admissions, including provision of re- ablement services – (Start Apr 2011)
ii. Begin evaluation of dementia strategy’s progress – (Start Oct 2010)
5.5 Support the work of local authorities and provider organisations to deliver gains in efficiency and effectiveness through best practice
i. Work with the sector to disseminate best practice in terms of efficiency and effectiveness – (Start Jan 2011)
ii. Create the necessary support tools to achieve best practice at a local level – (Start Jan 2011 – end Dec 2011)
On 26 July 2010 Cody said:
A someone who has been working within the NHS for over 4 years I indeed agree that it is in need a radical shake up. The reason why being is that it is failing.
Our hospital is no longer used to cure and treat the sick but more rather used as a hotel, with maids and servants to ease the comfort of the patient temporarily, until they are discharged, only to be back in hospital again not so long afterwards,
This is all too common.
It should be our focus and our goal to try to ensure this does not happen as frequently as it does, who is to blame? The doctors? The nurses? I believe it is not them who are at fault, but the way they are trained. And the “rules and regulations” which they have to follow.
It frightens me that the majority of nurses in the NHS mostly appear to be working to protect their pin numbers rather than to provide quality patient care.
Too much useless paperwork which is not directed towards the actual problem.
We need to stop pretending that the NHS has improved over the years, it really has not, medical science has improved, but not the NHS.
On 27 July 2010 Prof Ann Bowling said:
DH is currently consulting out what outcomes the NHS should be measured against. Re: Domain 2: Enhancing quality of life for people with long-term conditions pp 23-26 in which you invite suggestions for how this could be measured:
This is a very important issue and needs very careful measurement to be meaningful to older people and policy. I have developed and tested a new measure of multidimensional quality of life, dervied directly from interviews with a thousand people aged 65+ across the UK (random sample): the Older People’s Quality of Life Questionnaire. The initial results show good reliability and validity – and better than existing measures which were developed top down by ‘experts’ (academics). – search/see Bowling in Current Geriatrics and Gerontology 2009 (published open access). I am moving to St George’s University of London Sept 1st and welcome contacts about the OPQOL.
On 08 September 2010 Wendy Elizabeth Day (Miss) said:
I volunteer for a cancer charity – Marie Curie – and patients have a right to decent care when told they have cancer, choice of where they want to die is important. I am a carer, though not for someone with cancer – carer’s allowance should be increased from the current £53.00, to at least £95.00, ok if not taken out of other benefits.
On 10 September 2010 Wrozba Z Obraczki said:
Nice post