Ed Balls Crisis in Care.

fluttERBY123

Wasn't the Elvis impersonator the head of the care home? It was that or nothing, don't think the residents noticed, looked like a good afternoon.

I think he was the Clinical Lead, fluttERBY123, doing his best and going above and beyond as no outside entertainment was allowed into care homes for a long time due to Covid restrictions.
Dementia patients can often remember old music and lyrics even if they have forgotten a lot else.

I had my annual check-up (a year overdue) with our Practice Nurse yesterday. She was a bit concerned because my average blood pressure reading were a bit high, and wanted me to start on medication for it. Apparently I have a 30% chance of having a heart attack if I don't.
I told her that, at 82, I would prefer to drop dead with a heart attack, rather than end up in a 'care' home with dementia.
She laughed, but admitted that she, too, would prefer that option. We compromised on me having a recheck in 2 months.

Excellent programme and presenter. Ed Balls conveyed the problems of the system well and was tactful and discreet in his dealings with the elderly and their day-to-day care. It's well known that carers are poorly paid and not recognised as skilled workers. Ed Balls drew attention to something I hadn't thought of before - there is no career structure for carers. One of the carers featured in the programme was a young man of 19. He was good at his job but was only there temporarily before going to train as a paramedic. From there he would be able to build a career and a pension, something he can't currently do if he stays in the care sector.

I'm so angry about the way the care system is always pushed to the back of the queue. It needs to be integrated with the NHS. It is random whether you end up with cancer or dementia but your care path through these diseases is very different. Successive governments have said they will fix it but nothing happens. The latest fudging of the issue will see money raised from increased National Insurance going mainly to the NHS. The money designated to the care sector will be too little, too late. And significantly the issue of actual reform in the care sector has been ignored yet again.

Meanwhile millions of pounds are wasted in the NHS on beds being blocked because of the large numbers who have nowhere to go for care when well enough to leave hospital. The fact that so many elderly and frail are abandoned in this way is a disgrace. It is heart-breaking for them and their families. It shames us as a nation and we need to be better than this.

I will be watching Part 2 of Ed Balls programme.

Wasn't the Elvis impersonator the head of the care home? It was that or nothing, don't think the residents noticed, looked like a good afternoon.

Winter white. You say that the programme was for the people who don't know about the care crisis, or disregard it. I agree, but people like that wouldn't dream of watching a programme about the care crisis....and so it goes on.

I heard him on the radio follow up phone in the next day. Made a lot of good points. We have too many needing care. Society can only support a certain proportion of people to a good standard. We must chip away at the numbers needing care. By reducing disability at birth, preserving health during 'the prime', and helping the active 'post-work' stage be as long as possible and the very frail to dying stage as short as possible. Would be better for us all.

Can I just say please talk to your closest relative about this when you can. My mother who was 94 spent three months in hospital being treated for various things which developed after she had a fall. One of the things we manged to discuss with her was a Do Not Resuscitate agreement. She didn't want to be treated like that. She was due for discharge and after I rejected all the care homes which provided nursing care (she would have hated them) we were arranging care in her home when she suddenly developed pneumonia and died. I asked afterwards what they would have done if she hadn't signed the DNR and it would have been the full treatment including life support machines if necessary. Her death was upsetting but it was the best thing for her.
The nursing care in the hospital was amazing but the care homes I looked at were awful. I cried regularly after viewing them.

I just don’t get it! It is the RIGHT of elderly people to be looked after superbly in their old age! They have paid into a society that promised this! I know how difficult the so called ‘care’ system is; both my parents needed care, my mother with complex physical needs and my father with dementia. Many of the care homes we looked at (especially the council run ones) were substandard despite the CQC. Now the pension triple lock is under threat. I ask myself why this country gives very little respect or dignity to older people when it spends so VERY much money on placating more strident (and often minority) lobby groups and various causes du jour. Yes it IS political and yes, we should be angry!

I had never dreamt that my OH would one day need to be in a NH - even when I knew he had Parkinsons I had assumed that I would just be able to look after him to the end. But in the end I was ground down by it and could not go on.

I worked so hard to make sure he was in an excellent home, but it cost me dear in every way. .......emotionally, financially, lifestyle .... everything.

This is why I hate the phrase "put him into a home" - I know only too well that this is seldom a decision taken lightly.

GermanShepherdsMum I'm with you there - my intentions exactly. The thought of being helpless but aware is a nightmare for me - having strangers doing personal things would be my idea of hell.

I should mention that the case I quoted to Social Services was that of Pamela Caughlan.
Also see the case of Maureen Groghan.

These are famous cases and if quoted may help you to get NHS care for your relative.

I’ve recorded it and will be better able to comment afterwards.
I like Ed Balls a lot, he seems a genuine chap.

One comment not related to the programme. I wish another name could be found rather than ‘carer’ which doesn’t sound particularly professional to me. It conjures up an image of a dead end, low paid job and it’s very far from that, low paid yes, but it’s a highly trained and dedicated job and should be recognised as such.

My dear husband had Alzheimers and I nursed him as long as I could. Then he suffered a vascular stroke and was admitted to our local hospital when he stayed for several months. I visited him for 5 hours every day and then his bed was needed and he was moved, without telling me, to a care home 26 miles away. By then he did not know anybody, was barely eating, lost weight every day, was blind, and could not communicate at all. I drove to the care home every day and stayed with him for 5 hours. I fed him his meals, shaved him, gave him a bottle for toileting, and tried to communicate with him, etc. After several months he died and I was then sent a bill for social care. I refused to pay as he was not a social care person but a very sick person entitled to NHS care which is supposed to be from cradle to grave. I researched the internet and found that an East Devon (where I live) court had ruled that a patient like my husband was not a social care patient but a person in need of and deserving of free NHS care. That lady was in much better shape than my husband and I quoted her case to the Social Services who were pursuing me for money month after month. In the end I won my case and did not have to pay.

Kali2

grannysyb

Two friends have put their husbands into care homes, they both have dementia and the wives had coped with them at home for a long time and were both suffering from their own health problems. My DH "has said to me "please don't put me in a home," and I have said that I can't promise that. I'm sure it's a very hard decision for people to make.

I am for sure glad I live currently in a country where the choice will be ours as and when this time comes. We have made a pact.

I think this country needs to face the reality of this.

DH just phoned to see how an elderly friend is; he is nearly 90, has had strokes, vascular dementia and just existing with carers calling in, his elderly wife trying her best and occasional respite care. He got taken into hospital with pneumonia where he has been treated for weeks and is due out today - and I have to ask why? Pneumonia is known as 'The Old People's Friend' as it is supposedly a gentle way to go.

Frankly, the older DH and I get, the more I fear what is ahead, both my parents died from Alzheimer's. I just hope for a swift end in my own bed.

It was interesting and upsetting. I hope that the Department of Health pay attention and do something to raise the level of careworkers into the same system as NHS staff and to improve the reputation and working conditions for them. They do a wonderful job and need better structures and support.

I used to work in care homes & thought it a true representation, we used to get 15mins to get someone up, washed and dressed and this programme showed how impossible this is with some people who are too ill to co-operate, we need to look after older folk better, this was one of the better homes & like Ed said, we need a career progression. I thought Ed was great & so hope Labour get in next time cos they care about people not profits

I intend to plan well in advance Callistemon! Each month's prescription is more than adequate but I am lacking the something really nice. Maybe I could treat myself to Dom Perignon!!! Unless robbed of the ability to do so of course, for instance by a catastrophic stroke, in which case my clear instructions are not to resuscitate or feed me. I only hope it's my husband who would be carrying out the instructions as I fear my son would not be able to. Hopefully a long way ahead but it pays to be prepared and in my personal opinion not let the horrors of full-on dementia take hold. I do not advocate my chosen action nor wish to influence anyone else. It is a purely personal choice.

grannysyb

Two friends have put their husbands into care homes, they both have dementia and the wives had coped with them at home for a long time and were both suffering from their own health problems. My DH "has said to me "please don't put me in a home," and I have said that I can't promise that. I'm sure it's a very hard decision for people to make.

I am for sure glad I live currently in a country where the choice will be ours as and when this time comes. We have made a pact.

Germanshepherdsmum

I’m afraid my alternative sodapop is a handful of pills (I take pills for epilepsy which would be lethal, no chance of being resuscitated) washed down with something nice. Rather as Terry Pratchett said he would do, though in the event the chance was taken from him. I can’t bear the thought of being dependent on anyone, even my husband, for ‘personal care’ nor of spending vast sums of money which my family could put to good use to sit mouldering away in ‘God’s waiting room’.

My sentiments exactly..

elderly care should be under the wings of the state,at such a vulnerable stage in life people need protection and care,Im aware that no system is perfect, but the care system does not do too well privatised. How we treat our vulnerable must be a sign of a civilised society, but then i am not so sure i live in one.......

Boris got his headlines about 'fixing' social care and has now moved on (or tripped over the Paterson shambles) to talk up climate change for more headlines so I wouldn't expect any further social care improvements, not until the cows come home.

This crisis is not new. Its been going on for years. The Care Workers are under paid and under valued. There's not enough public money being used to make it work. Most of all its totally unfair that people who work hard to provide for their old age have to lose it all whereas people who haven't get it all for nothing.

Granny's you are correct: although we know full well that dementia is a disease of the brain, when it comes to funding, sufferers are classed as needing social care for which they have to self fund, whereas, for example, a cancer suffer would be funded as needing health care.
I think that this programme, the first in a series, was excellent and the above point was clearly spelled out along with many other issues. Like others here I was already aware of the many issues raised but lots of folk aren't. Let's hope that they didn't just turn over to another channel.

i am a former home care worker (now retired) and the way not only the clients but also the carers are treated is beyond belief, i more than once had to call for a doctor or ambulance to some one i was with and on phoning manger to say i was with ill person and waiting for medical care to arrive and would be late to next client and more than once told oh just leave them and go to next person which i never did i always waited