06.05.16
NHS ‘double standard’ means dementia sufferers are deprived of services
The Alzheimer’s Society and Care England have warned that the NHS is failing to provide care home residents with dementia the care they need.
The Alzheimer’s Society are now launching a new campaign, Fix Dementia Care, after a joint survey of 285 care home managers found that 44% did not feel the NHS provided residents with dementia with adequate and timely access to secondary care, and 45% did not feel residents had adequate access to mental health care.
The report also found GPs were wrongly charging one in five care homes for treatment, with costs totalling up to £26m a year for care and violating the principle that NHS care should be free at the point of delivery.
Jeremy Hughes, chief executive of Alzheimer’s Society, said: “People with dementia living in care homes are just as entitled to receive free care from the NHS as anyone else. A care home is, after all, a person’s home and health services must treat care homes as a vital part of the community, instead of holding them in disregard.
“It’s unacceptable that this NHS double standard is leaving people with dementia waiting months for physiotherapy, incontinence and mental health services. In that time we are concerned they’re being robbed of essential care and pain relief, as well as their dignity, self-esteem and independence.”
The report found case studies including a resident with suicidal thoughts who had to wait eight weeks for mental health treatment; a resident with a hip fracture who waited over a year for follow-up physiotherapy; residents who were prescribed the wrong drugs because their GP insisted on a telephone consultation; and residents who waited three months for continence aids.
Among care home residents, 70% of the population – 280,000 people – have dementia.
Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, said that care home residents and staff had been “all but abandoned by primary care”.
The Fix Dementia Care campaign is calling for an end to GPs charging care homes; the government to enforce the NHS constitution so that people with dementia in care homes have equal access to treatment; and that the government supports improvements in the availability of district and community nurses in care homes.
An NHS spokesperson said: “The NHS has dramatically increased the number of people with dementia who are able to be diagnosed in order to receive early support.
“Care homes have first line responsibility for looking after their residents, with appropriate back-up from the local NHS, of the sort now being developed in the new vanguard programme.”
The British Medical Association recently voted to be allowed to opt out of care home visits.
NHE recently interviewed George McNamara, head of integrated care at the Alzheimer’s Society, about the importance of dementia advisers for people with dementia and their families.
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