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Showing results for tags 'Social Care'.
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Content ArticleDifficulties discharging over thirteen thousand patients safely are slowing the flow through hospitals while being stuck in hospital when you don’t need medical care is both mentally and physically harmful. People risk picking up hospital acquired infections, muscle loss and impaired mobility, reduced confidence and independence skills. However, according to Gilda Peterson, Leeds KONP and Secretary, End Social Care, there are ten things wrong with the Government's plan to give the NHS £200m to buy beds in care homes, hotels, hospices and independent hospitals.
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Content Article
Age UK: Fixing the Foundations (17 February 2023)
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Older people
A new in-depth report from the Charity Age UK, ‘Fixing the Foundations’, reveals how our under-funded and overstretched NHS and social care system is struggling and sometimes failing to cope with the needs of older people. The report provides a first-hand account of older people’s difficulties in getting the good, joined up health and social care they need to manage at home, leaving them at risk of crisis which often results in being admitted to hospital. Yet the evidence is clear that with the right care at the right time many of these admissions could have been avoided. The report also includes perspectives from professionals and unpaid carers. It also shows how living with multiple long-term health conditions, as a significant proportion of older people do, including more than two-thirds of those aged over 85, makes it especially hard to navigate health services which are still usually organised around individual illnesses and diseases. Meanwhile social care was often inadequate or absent in these older people’s lives. Age UK estimates that astonishingly, over 1.6 million older people have some level of fundamental care and support need, such as help to get dressed, washed or getting out of bed, that is not being fully addressed. -
Content ArticleThis paper from Natalie Offord and colleagues describes a service redesign in which has gained learning and experience in two areas. First, a description of measured improvement by the innovation of redesigning the traditional hospital-based assessment of frail older patients’ home support needs (assess to discharge) into their own home and meeting those needs in real time (discharge to assess). In combination with the formation of a collaborative health and social care community team to deliver this new process, there has been a reduction in the length of stay from completion of acute hospital care to getting home (from 5.5 days to 1.2 days for those patients that require support at home). Second, the methodology through which this has been achieved. The authors describe their translation of a Toyota methodology used for the design of complex cars to use for engaging staff and patients in the design of a healthcare process.
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Content Article
Emergency medical technicians (EMTs) can operate as a single responder to an incident or support a paramedic on a double-crewed ambulance. They have many of the same skills as paramedics, such as being able to assess, triage and provide lifesaving treatment.[1] In this account, an EMT describes their current experience of being on the frontline. They talk about patient care, getting stuck in ambulance queues and how they have adapted to new ways of working, beyond their training. Lastly, they offer insight into where the solutions might lie and how improvements could be made. -
Content ArticleThis analysis from the Health Foundation examines how healthcare spending in the UK compares with EU countries in the decade preceding the pandemic. Taking a longer-term view enables us to see how trends in spending may have impacted healthcare resilience today.
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Content ArticleThe NHS and social care systems need more money. If there is anything else that they need as much, it is honesty from the government. Post-Covid, the UK’s health systems are in a perilously fragile state. As analysis by the Guardian showed this week, logjams created by delayed discharges appear to be getting worse. An average of 13,600 hospital beds in England are occupied by patients with nowhere else to go. As well as making new admissions impossible, unnecessarily long stays can make it harder for people to regain their independence after leaving. So far, a £500m emergency fund promised by ministers to ease the pressure has failed to materialise. It is a symptom of the social care crisis that hospitals find it so hard to discharge people who are well enough to leave.
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Content ArticleThis download is the second of three chapters of a book which complements the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors' Healthcare Learning Pathway and is intended as a practical resource for students.
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Content ArticleWe need urgent radical solutions for the crisis in social care, to prevent the collapse not just of the NHS but of the entire UK economy. Social care is facing extreme difficulties with funding and workforce shortages. Staff are poorly paid, and 10% of posts are vacant. The situation is about to get worse: 19% of the UK population is over 65. In Northern Ireland the number of people over 65 more than doubled between the censuses in 2011 and 2021. Projections show that each person will need an average of 10 years of social care. We must, then, focus on prevention. The need for social care is not inevitable. Ageing does not have to be associated with a loss of fitness. Exercise and strength training can restore muscle and balance and are proved to reduce the impact of falls and fractures.
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Content ArticleCharlotte Augst, chief executive of National Voices, challenges system leaders to think differently about what is needed to repair the NHS. As next year is likely to be the most difficult people ever had to live through, since NHS’s inception, she urges leaders to stand together
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Content Article'State of Care' is the Care Quality Commission's annual assessment of health care and social care in England. The report looks at the trends, shares examples of good and outstanding care, and highlights where care needs to improve.
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Content ArticleThis report sets out the impact the Point of Care Foundation’s programmes have had on people who use and deliver health and care services, in its mission to humanise healthcare.
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Content ArticlePeople who provide care unpaid for a family member or a friend due to illness, disability, or mental health provide a vital role bridging gaps in state-funded support. But despite the laudable policy statements in support of carers, this Nuffield Trust report looking at the policy history and latest data shows that the reality for unpaid carers has been one of diminishing help over time.
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Content ArticleThis report from Skills for Care provides a comprehensive analysis of the adult social care workforce in England and the characteristics of the 1.50 million people working in it. Topics covered include recent trends in workforce supply and demand, employment information, recruitment and retention, demographics, pay, qualification rates and future workforce forecasts.
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Content ArticleThe number of people waiting for NHS treatment in England has risen rapidly during the Covid-19 pandemic, with more than 6.8 million people waiting for treatment in July 2022. Read the Institute for Fiscal Studies' analysis of NHS waiting lists.
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Content ArticleTherese Coffey, the new health and social care secretary, sets out the government’s plans for the NHS and social care to deliver for patients, this winter and next. The government's plan for patients sets out the priorities for health and care, delivering across four key areas: ambulances backlogs care doctors and dentists. Read her Ministerial foreword below.
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Content ArticleThe UK health system is under unprecedented strain. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these pressures, but it did not create them. The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and its member organisations believe that as a country we are not facing up to the scale of the current challenges and we are not producing any coherent strategy to tackle the problems. Only when we confront these challenges will we be able to begin to fix the NHS. A combination of pressures means that the system is providing care and services which are sub-standard, threaten patient safety and fall below what should be expected in a country with the resources of the United Kingdom. If we do not act with urgency, we risk permanently normalising the unacceptable standards we now witness daily, to the detriment of us all.
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Content ArticleThe UK’s new health secretary, Thérèse Coffey, has not taken on an easy job. Almost two-thirds of trainee GPs plan to work part-time just a year after they qualify, reporting that the job has become too intense to safely work more. A record 6.8 million people are waiting for hospital treatment in England, and 132,139 posts lie vacant across the NHS in England. Ian Sample hears from acute medicine consultant Dr Tim Cooksley about what’s happening within the NHS, and speaks to the Guardian’s health policy editor, Denis Campbell, about how the UK’s health and social care systems ended up in crisis and whether they can be fixed.
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Content Article
In this blog, Patient Safety Learning marks World Patient Safety Day 2022. It sets out the scale of avoidable harm in health and social care, the need for a transformation in our approach to patient safety and considers the theme of this year’s World Patient Safety Day, medication safety. -
Content ArticlePerceptions of care work as low skilled continue to persist, despite the pandemic highlighting just how vital care workers are. In recent years there has been increased debate around the ‘professionalisation’ of this staff group, which generally refers to the creation of a statutory register of staff and their professional regulation. This new Nuffield Trust report reviews what the evidence shows about the professionalisation of care workers in other countries.
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Content ArticleWith Liz Truss becoming the new Prime Minister today after winning the Tory leadership contest, what are the health and care commitments from the 2019 Conservative Party Manifesto that she inherits? Mark Dayan, Lucina Rolewicz and Jessica Morris explore the progress of the main health and care promises that were made. Which are on course to be delivered and which are not?
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Content ArticleListen to Roy Lilley read his daily NHSManagers.net e-Letter. Roy Lilley is a health policy analyst, writer, broadcaster and commentator on the National Health Service and social issues.
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Content ArticleThe NHS Confederation, NHS Providers, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, National Voices and the Richmond Group of Charities have penned a joint letter to the new Prime Minister warning that without urgent action on key priorities the NHS risks being trapped in a relentless cycle unable to meet rising patient need and demand. The five organisations, which together represent NHS leaders, clinicians and patients, are calling on the new government to take rapid action to address five key priorities in the short term. These priorities are: Workforce Social care Capital funding The impact of the cost of living crisis and inflation Strengthening the voice of people living with ill health in decision making.
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News Article
Alarm over Liz Truss raid on NHS
Patient-Safety-Learning posted a news article in News
Hospital bosses have warned that they face “impossible choices” under Liz Truss’s plan to divert £10 billion a year from the NHS to social care. They say that her pledge to remove cash earmarked for the health service will “slam the brakes” on efforts to tackle record waiting lists, with patients bearing the brunt. An extra £36 billion has been ring-fenced for health and care spending over the next three years, of which less than £2 billion a year is due to go towards social care. Truss, the frontrunner in the Conservative leadership contest, has announced that as prime minister she will divert the entire amount to local authorities to pay for older people’s care. This would create a £10 billion shortfall in annual NHS spending, the equivalent of imposing a 7 per cent budget cut on the service. NHS bosses say that they would have no choice but to cut services as they face the worst winter crisis in living memory, forcing patients to wait longer for treatment. There are already 6.7 million people on waiting lists, while patients are dying because of a sharp increase in ambulance response times and accident and emergency waiting times are the worst on record. Truss told a Times Radio hustings: “I still would spend the money. I would just take it out of general taxation rather than raising national insurance. But I would spend that money in social care. Quite a lot has gone to the NHS. I would give it to local authorities.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times (25 August 2022) -
Content ArticleLack of capacity in social care is having a severe effect on NHS services as hospitals are unable to discharge patients without appropriate care arrangements in place. This is causing delays right across the healthcare system. In this report, NHS Confederation highlights the risks to patient safety caused by the workforce crisis affecting social care in England. In the Confederation's latest survey, 99% of healthcare leaders agreed that there is a social care workforce crisis in their local area, and almost all agreed that it is worse than a year ago and expect it to deteriorate into this winter. The report recommends the government focus on the following key priorities to deal with the crisis: Increase pay in the social care sector, starting by immediately implementing a national care worker minimum wage Publish a long-term, properly funded plan to develop the care workforce and offer career progression opportunities Commit to increasing overall investment to increase access to care to those who need it, meet future demand and pay more for care
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Content ArticleThis strategy sets out the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care’s vision for how data will be used to improve the health and care of the population in a safe, trusted and transparent way. It: provides an overarching narrative and action plan to address the current cultural, behavioural and structural barriers in the system, with the ultimate goal of having a health and care system that is underpinned by high-quality and readily available data marks the next steps of the discussion about how we can best utilise data for the benefit of patients, service users, and the health and care system This strategy applies to England only. The strategy shows how data will be used to bring benefits to all parts of health and social care – from patients and care users to staff on the frontline and pioneers driving the most cutting-edge research. It is backed by a series of concrete commitments, including: investing in secure data environments to power life-saving research and treatments using technology to allow staff to spend more quality time with patients giving people better access to their own data through shared care records and the NHS App.
