What was health care and adult social care in 2020 and 2021?
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) checks how good health and social care services are in places like hospitals, GP surgeries, care homes and home-care services. This booklet outlines what it found in these services in England over the last year.
A report, by Carers UK, ‘Caring Behind Closed Doors’ provides a real insight into the experience of being a carer during this pandemic over a 10 day period in April. The comments by carers highlight the stress and heart-breaking concerns they experience. 55% of unpaid carers feel overwhelmed and are worried that they are going to burnout in the coming weeks. Read the report here.
In response to the continuing coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, Carers UK is committed to maintaining its services as effectively as possible.
They have been monitoring the outbreak very closely. As you know the situation has rapidly changed as has the guidance. As a result they have decided to postpone the State of Caring conference scheduled to take place on 16th July 2020.
The State of Caring Conference 2020 will now take place on Wednesday 21st October 2020 at Holiday Inn Bloomsbury. See here for more details about the conference.
They will continue to take bookings, however, they will not get in touch with conference updates before the end of May as they do appreciate everyone’s priorities and way of working have been impacted due to the latest developments. Contact them by email or visit their website for more information and updates.
The Ombudsman service has issued advice about the management of care home top-up fees, following appeals against its decisions recently. If you are currently paying top-up fees for a relative, or are planning long-term care for someone, please follow this link for advice.
There is a new service to support people bereaved or affected by suicide across Harrogate.
NHS England has provided funding for a suicide bereavement service across West Yorkshire & Harrogate. The project is run by Leeds Mind and informed by the Leeds Suicide Bereavement Service. The workers have their own personal experience of suicide bereavement. You can access support as an individual or work place. The service is a response to the fact that people bereaved by suicide are more likely to suffer from severe depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, or even adopt suicidal behaviours themselves. To access support you must be a resident of West Yorkshire or Harrogate. For more details follow this link. (Possible slow link)
A report published by Age UK indicates that 23 million hours of unpaid care is provided by people over 80. This is equivalent to 1.2 billion hours of care a year at a saving of £23 million to the healthcare system.
Unfortunately this comes at a personal cost to the health of the carers, who are often living with long-term health and mobility problems and who are unable to get any breaks or respite from their duties.
For further details, please follow this link.
Community First Yorkshire states that ‘a carer is someone who, without payment, provides help and support to a friend, neighbour or relative who could not manage otherwise because of frailty, illness or disability. They may even be juggling paid work with caring responsibilities at home’.
Following Carers’ Week, it is important to ensure that carers are aware of the resources available to them. Carers’ Resource has gathered some quick information about each allowance and benefit. Also, Carers UK has an online tool to guide you to information about benefits and other entitlements.
Join us at our next Forum meeting to find out how technology can be used to ‘help people live well, receive information, support treatment when they need it and make choices about how their care services are provided’. North Yorkshire Health and Wellbeing Board is developing a strategy which will provide a 10 year plan of how technology can be used to help organisations work together to provide an integrated approach to services.
There will also be a presentation by Rachel Durrett (Harrogate and Rural District Clinical Commissioning Group) prior to a Summer engagement event focusing on community mental health services for adults and older people in the Harrogate District.
Further details available on our Forum Events page.
An important consultation has just been opened on proposed changes to the way in which adult social care is charged.
NYCC is consulting on proposals about how people who use adult social care services contribute to their costs. The consultation covers two main areas:
Please go to our ‘Have your say‘ page to read about details of the proposed changes and how you can have your say.
The Consumer Association Which? has launched a new website ‘Later Life Care’ https://www.which.co.uk/later-life-care providing lots of useful information and advice about care choices, allowances etc.9:24 AM – 20 Oct 2018