More care homes needed?

It's an interesting question MH. My concern is there may well be 'innovations' but will those be available to everyone or just the privileged few? I do feel that governments tend to ignore these sorts of issues because they're not deemed exciting enough or close enough for people to attach any real need to. It's only when it becomes a real crisis and affects people directly that most of us are likely to act.

I am very suspicious of innovations that will help people stay at home and my concern is the opposite of yours minimo, my concerns are that it will be the poorest who will have to suffer these innovations because they will all be aimed at keeping people at home with minimal, expensive, human intervention. The better off will be able to afford to buy in real people

Poorer old people who would otherwise be in a care home will be stuck in their own homes home being monitored by devices that will sound an alarm if they fall but otherwise the machines will dish out pills at the appropriate time, remind people to take them and to undertake other tasks. Possibly feed food from a freezer into a microwave and cook it for meals, even have hot drinks in paper mugs in powder form that have water automatically put in them and heated at regular times. It doesn't bear thinking about. The old and poor trapped in their homes, like punishment cells in prison, nobody speaking to them, calling on them, food, just pushed through a shutter.

Those that can afford it will be able to move into expensive quality homes with good care, company to eat and associate with.

The ideas quoted in the links (Community Circles and Shared Care) have been a round a long time - since before I retired! But the thing that needs to be understood is that they do not come cheap. The government is always looking for cheaper options, quite understandably, but there is no cheap solution. It may be that these pother options might make people happier, which is just what is needed, but they might not be cheaper. I remember when "care in the community" was the buzzword and we SWs kept saying: "If it is done properly then it will not be cheaper."

Shared Care is basically fostering adults - we used to call it Adult Placement - and it can work very well indeed...BUT....proper recruitment, preparation, training and ongoing support of those who take this on are vital for it to work - and that does not come cheap. It takes up a lot of time and time has to be paid for.

Ditto the Community Circles - great idea but all of the above applies equally in order to safeguard the interests of everyone.

I am not denigrating these ideas - they can work brilliantly - but they do not come cheap.

I think it is also important that "homes" are not devalued - a good residential/nursing home can be a joy to some elderly. But there are too many substandard ones; and we do not want that replicated in the community.

The really cheap option of carers popping in and out to someone at home and gone in a flash has been shown to be the disaster that we all predicted. Not only do the care workers have insufficient time to do their jobs properly, but the elderly person is still burdened with all the things that go with being at home: phone bills, electricity meters, forms to fill in etc. etc. A good residential home takes all those burdens away and is a godsend to many.

I certainly don't want to be stuck at home by myself with intermittent random 'carers' and disembodied electronic voices reminding me to take my pills.
A cheery care home for me please. Doesn't have to be fancy. Clean and with happy staff and decent food. Nirvana

As long as it has a nice spacious flatlet that you can have your own things in, that wouldn't be bad.

So how do these options work Luckygirl? Are they both organised by social services? So they would be dependent on your local council funding them?

Interesting ideas. As you say, not cheap in practice even though they seem (from the links) to be based on using volunteers.

No care home for me!
I managed to keep my father in his home and then a over 55 apartment until he required palliative care and was taken against our wishes to a nursing home for the last few days of his life.

He was profoundly deaf from a young age and was twice put in to a care home for respite after being in hospital.
My husband found him behind his room door. he had been there ages.
Just got an 'oh dear' from the staff and he should have pressed his buzzer .
He had been continuously!

The Staff who were just out of school would walk in put his meal in front of him and walk out, they did not try to communicate with him .
If they had anything to say to him they would just shout down his ear!

I have come to the conclusion for less money I can move in to a Premier Lodge with clean linen, towels, shampoo and body Wash provided.
Room cleaned
Plus mini bar.
And employ carers if need be.

Sheltered housing schemes seem a good idea and can work very well for some people (my mother loved hers until she needed a greater level of care).

Unfortunately, the resident manager seems to be disappearing from these schemes (not sure if that is both private and council run?) which is a shame.

The resident wardens have all been replaced by technology. Help lines and buttons to press for help is all you get these days, unless you need carers, which you organise in the usual way.

I think quite a few old people have gone the Premier Inn way.

Or a cruise line!

We have a Housing With Care scheme here which is wonderful and I hope more of them are built. Some of the flats are owned and some rented through the council. Each flat is one (some two) bedroom, a Jack and Jill bathroom and a lounge/kitchen. Just like the McCarthy and Stone ones only wheelchair accessible. A proper home. The ground floor ones have patios. (And that's what I want). The service charge covers the lovely communal garden and all cleaning including the flat, plus two hours a week care from carers dedicated to that home. There's a laundry, hairdressers, restaurant with it's own kitchen, and communal areas with art classes etc. The care increases as needed although obviously so does the service charge to cover it if you're self funding.

We were in the process of buying one for my mum but she got too ill and needed full time nursing and, although they said they could offer it, she opted to stay in the care home opposite. We worked out that the service charge with two hours care was only about £500 p.a. more than she was paying at home for jobbing gardener, cleaner, window cleaner, annual repairs etc without all the worry and the flat would have been much cheaper to heat etc. Having a carer 'on tap' was a big appeal too. It's where I'm going if I need care!

How much are they Nfk?
We have quite a big garden in a village and my friend and I plan to put up 4 small log cabins, divide my bungalow into 2 and move a carer into the converted double garage that, at present, I work in . Then we can live in a small community with 24 hour care.
The problem is that we can't work out the financial aspects and rules so it probably won't happen. Still we do keep going over and over it trying to think of all the ways we could make it work.
DH can't think of anything worse!

Sadly decent care in old age is about money. There's no two ways of looking at it. I was chatting to one of our local post women just the other day(I went to school with her sister) and she told me that the LA are offering just over £300 per week for the care of her mum in a home and she and her siblings are having to find the rest (another several hundred pounds per month) as the alternative would be one of the cheapest (smelly and horrible) LA homes. It's heartbreaking. What if you don't have any money? You just have to rot in one of those disgusting old age prisons? No prizes for guessing where I will end up then.

I manAged

Yikes gremlins this morning....

I managed to keep my grandma in her own home until at 99 she went into a hospice for just two weeks before she died. It was very hard work. I can't get over the guilt that I wasn't able to let her die at home which was her last wish. I just couldn't have managed.

Ooh yes. Book me in Nfk. That place sounds just right!

Yes the Housing with Care sounds good to me too nfk. The only similar one in my area is an extremely expensive private version though.

our local authority decided to build a new care home on the outskirts of the town..not ideal in my opinion as having people and things outside your window /garden EVEN if you cant get out is good for keeping older folk involved.Now it seems the "old" care home they were moved from had been sold to a private care company...its situated in a great spot next to TV studio and set and on main bus routes so always a hive of activity .Sometimes I wonder what these councillors are on.Its a good spot for PRIVATE care home but other old people ares tuck in the back of beyond .

There are now no council run care homes in my district at all. There are only two in the whole county. It's all been privatised.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-61103605.html

I don't know if this link will work Jane and Pamela. My iPad is verging on a breakdown.

Just realised this one is shared ownership - I think they're around £140,00 to buy outright. A pity there's no pictures of the communal areas - and on the satalite map it hasn't been built!