NEWS RELEASE FROM THE
REGISTERED NURSING HOME ASSOCIATION
Issued 17th September 2003
CARE SYSTEM STILL FAILING VULNERABLE OLDER PEOPLE - NURSING HOMES’ RESPONSE TO PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE REPORT
With an average of about two nursing homes closing every day across the country and up to 3,500 older patients stuck in NHS acute hospitals because of discharge delays, the Registered Nursing Home Association (RNHA) said that today’s report from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee highlights endemic indecision by the Government in tackling a dysfunctional care system.
The RNHA insists that, whatever the political rhetoric from Ministers about partnership working, many independent sector providers of long-term health care for vulnerable older people are left out of the loop completely when local authorities and the NHS plan how to balance demand for places with current or planned capacity.
Welcoming the Public Accounts Committee’s conclusion that bed blocking problems can only be solved by better co-ordination between NHS acute trusts, primary care trusts, social services and the independent sector, the RNHA is calling on the Government to acknowledge its past failure in ensuring a ‘whole system’ approach to the care of older people and to act urgently to make it happen in the future.
RNHA chief executive officer Frank Ursell is also challenging comments made earlier today on radio by Health Minister Stephen Ladyman that there were 10,000 too many care home places. Said Mr Ursell: “Given the continued size of the bed blocking problem, this is patently nonsense. The Government needs to wake up and see what is going on in many parts of the country. The problem is one of policy, co-ordination and funding, not one of over-capacity.”
He added: “The Government has failed to grasp another reality - which is that many chronically sick and disabled older people have such multiple health needs that their care can only be safely provided in a residential setting with qualified nurses on duty 24 hours a day. Contrary to the ideological groove into which their thinking has been channelled in recent years, domiciliary care is not a panacea.
“Ironically, Government policy in this field has backfired badly. Trying to look after a greater number of highly dependent individuals with expensive home support packages sounds good in theory. But without additional money being pumped into the system, it has simply resulted in fewer people actually receiving domiciliary care.
Meanwhile, many older people who would benefit from nursing home care are experiencing significant delays, either because the money isn’t there or because the assessment system is inefficient.”
The RNHA claims that current performance indicators used nationally to measure the efficiency of local authorities carry perverse incentives which are acting against the interests of older people.
Said Mr Ursell: “Local authorities are scored more highly if they increase the proportion of older people cared for at home. This works against those individuals whose needs demand a more intensive level of care in a residential setting – the very people the Public Accounts Committee is talking about. It is time to take a more balanced approach and to treat each case on its merits, rather than taking up an entrenched position which says that one type of care is automatically better than any other.”
END
For further information and comment, please contact:
Frank Ursell, Chief Executive Officer, RNHA Tel: 07785 227000
Should you not be able to contact him on the above number, please ring 0121-454 2511 and ask for Deirdre Kowalski, who will make contact with him on your behalf.
Note to editors:
The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee today published its Thirty-Third Report exploring the problem of delayed discharges in NHS acute hospitals.
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