12.03.13
CQC report shows pressure dementia is putting on services
The CQC’s update report on standards in health and social care highlights the impact dementia is having on service provision, while noting that 125 NHS services it inspected (17%) were failing on at least one standard, compared to 3,749 (20%) of adult social care services, and 244 (8%) of dental services.
The report, which examines the quality of care provided from April-December last year, notes that enforcement action had to be taken against four NHS services and 149 adult social care services.
The CQC said: “In almost a third (29%) of hospital admissions, staff did not record dementia as a condition that the patient was suffering from, even when it had been recorded in the past.”
It adds: “In more than half of PCT areas in England, care home residents who have dementia are more likely to go into a hospital with a problem such as a urinary infection, than people without dementia. Overall, those with dementia who are already in hospital are more likely to stay there longer, be readmitted and die in hospital than others in similar circumstances who do not have dementia.”
Overall, NHS services are doing a better job of planning and delivering care, the CQC report said, and had improved the way they protected people from abuse. Staff at community services and mental health and learning disability services were also being given more support.
But The number of hospitals that could ensure the quality of care they provided to people had decreased by 2%, to 88%, by the end of December 2012. This was often due to not doing enough to capture the views of patients to drive change.
An infographic with the key messages from the second Care Update report is here, while the full report can be found here.
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