Calderdale LINk

MPs warned that patients with dementia and diabetes risk losing support as a result of savage budget reductions

Anushka Asthana, policy editor guardian.co.uk, Saturday 30 October 2010 21.00 BST

John Healey, the shadow health minister, says that cuts will lead to ‘crises in the lives of many’.

Home care for the elderly and disabled could be withdrawn from hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people as a result of drastic cuts to council budgets.

The Local Government Association has warned MPs in a written submission, seen by the Observer, of a looming crisis in adult social care, claiming that an increasing number of councils could be forced to restrict services to those who have “critical” needs. It blames the cuts but also Britain’s ageing population.

Elderly people with conditions such as dementia, Parkinson’s and diabetes face losing support in their homes in some areas even if they are unable to “carry out the majority of personal care or domestic routines”, such as getting dressed and maintaining personal hygiene.

Andrew Harrop, director of policy and public affairs for Age UK, said that if councils tightened the eligibility criteria to exclude those whose need for care was currently classified as “substantial” it would mean no one living in their own home would be able to access such help: “[Care] would only be for those so fragile they are in a residential home.”

He said that many elderly people valued seeing a care worker because it helped alleviate loneliness: “For many older people it is a health and safety service helping them to get up in the morning, making sure they are OK in the evening,” he added.

The shadow health minister, John Healey, said: “This shows that you cannot make big budget cuts without big consequences and councils will be forced to look at short-term cash savings that will lead to crises in the lives of many.”

Age UK will release figures tomorrow claiming that a 7% cut, which experts say is realistic, would mean 250,000 fewer people receiving care in their homes.

Councillor David Sparks, vice-chair of the LGA, who gave evidence to the health select committee last week, said: “The LGA welcomed the £1bn to local authorities for adult social care, and the £1bn to the NHS in effect to help joint activities with local authorities, but given the demographic trend of the ageing population together with the cutbacks in public expenditure there will still be a shortfall in local government expenditure which will affect adult social care.” Despite government claims that the £2bn is enough to plug the gap, Sparks estimated the shortfall would run into billions of pounds.

The LGA submission says councils will “squeeze [out] every last potential pound” they can to save money through measures such as telecare, where the elderly and disabled are monitored through sensors. But that still won’t be enough. “There are four eligibility bands: critical, substantial, moderate and low… In a future that we know will be characterised by severe funding limitations we may well see an increase in the numbers of councils setting their eligibility level to ‘critical’ only.”

Richard Jones, president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, stressed that tightening eligibility criteria would be a last resort and was not inevitable. He said that councils would do everything they could to squeeze out efficiencies before going to “places they do not want to go”.

Jones said they would look at how much they pay for services, how much they charge, the quality of the service provided, and at the end “how many people you are able to support”.

He said social care would inevitably be hit as a result of cuts to local government because it was such a large proportion of local authorities’ budgets. As such, it would always be hard to protect if councils were having to make cuts.”We are the biggest spending area for local government, so protecting [adult] social care at the expense of lighting, roads and children’s social care is extremely challenging.”

Chris Skidmore, a Conservative MP on the health select committee, questioned Sparks and Jones about the issue last week. “The evidence presented to the committee demonstrates clearly the enormous challenge of meeting the rising demands of an ageing population with more complex needs,” he said.

Paul Burstow, minister for care services, said: “It is wrong to scare people about ‘cuts’. The coalition government has prioritised social care – the spending review announced significant extra funding for social care for each of the next four years, increasing to an extra £2bn investment in 2014-15.

“This extra money means no councils need to reduce access to social care… if they improve efficiency and drive forward with reform to make services more personal and preventative.”

Hundreds of local people with sleep disorders will soon benefit from a new, high-tech unit at the Calderdale Royal Hospital.

The Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust is expanding its Neurophysiology department, and work is underway to create two new sleep study rooms, along with extra space for diagnostic tests.

The sleep unit will be one of only three in the region with overnight facilities to measure a patient’s brain activity during sleep. This important assessment will help staff to diagnose disorders such as sleep apnoea, sleep walking and sleep related seizures.

Patients will be assessed and monitored by a small team of clinicians with specialist skills in sleep medicine.

The demand for sleep related diagnostics has risen nationally, and currently, patients who live in Huddersfield and Calderdale have to travel to hospitals in Leeds or Manchester for overnight assessment of brain activity.

Consultant neurophysiologist at the Trust, Dr Shwe Tun, welcomed the new development.

Dr Tun said: “Many sleep disorders are undiagnosed and there are limited facilities in the UK to study brain activity overnight.

“The sleep unit is a pioneering development for the Trust and excellent news for hundreds of people who experience a poor quality of sleep.”

The new service will be up and running early in the New Year.

23 August 2010

A new three-digit number – 111 – that will make it easier for patients to access non-emergency NHS healthcare wherever they are, 24 hours a day, was launched by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley today.

The new service, launched in part of the North East of England today, marks the first step towards a national roll out and is the beginning of a significant White Paper commitment to make care more accessible by introducing a single telephone number for every kind of non-emergency health care.

The 111 service is free to call and is staffed by a team of fully trained call advisers, supported by nurses, who are on hand to assess callers’ needs and ensure they receive the right service as quickly as possible.  It guides patients to a locally available service or provides appropriate advice and information 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The number can be used when you need help fast but it is not life threatening, or when you do not know who to call. This will be particularly useful outside of GP surgery hours and for people who are away from home.

When someone calls 111, they will be assessed straight away.  If it is an emergency, an ambulance will be despatched immediately without the need for any further assessment.  For any other health problems, the NHS 111 call advisers will be able to direct people to the service that is best able to meet their individual needs. For minor illnesses and injuries, the 111 service will be able to provide immediate medical advice.

Visiting the very first operational 111 call centre in the North East to talk to staff and patients about how the service is working, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said:

“It is essential that we improve access to, and understanding about, urgent care services, which includes out-of-hours care.  At present, too many people are confused about who to contact and how to do so.

“By putting in place one, easily memorable 111 number for all urgent inquiries to run alongside the emergency ‘999’ number we will simplify NHS services for patients.  111 will be free to call and available 24/7, putting patients in touch with the right NHS service, first time.

“I am delighted that people in County Durham and Darlington  are to be the first to benefit from this new service. Later this year we will launch the service in Nottingham City,  Lincolnshire and Luton. Ahead of national roll-out, this will help us understand what model works best for patients and delivers value for money.”

Yasmin Chaudhry, Chief Executive of NHS County Durham and Darlington said:

“The NHS 111 service will make it easier for the public to access urgent healthcare and will drive improvements in the way in which the NHS delivers that care. We want to make sure the right care is delivered in the right way for patients as well as ensuring NHS resources are used in the best way.

“By better understanding what people really need from different local services, 111 will help improve efficiency across the whole health care system by reducing unnecessary waste and making sure people get access to the right service, first time.”

Further pilots are planned for the East Midlands in Nottingham City and Lincolnshire and the East of England in Luton. Both regions have been chosen to test different ways of delivering the 111 service using various NHS providers that include the Ambulance Trust, an Out-of-Hours service and NHS Direct.

Notes to Editors:

1. The NHS 111 service will make it easier for the public to access urgent healthcare and will drive  improvements in the way in which the NHS delivers that care. We are introducing 111 as the easy to remember,  free to call number for urgent healthcare services. The 111 service will provide consistent clinical  assessment at the first point of contact and direct people to the right NHS service, first time.

2. The new 111 service is currently only available to people in County Durham and Darlington.

3. Calls to the NHS 111 service in County Durham and Darlington are handled by North East Ambulance Service NHS  Trust, who also handle 999 calls.

4. The NHS 111 service is being launched by four pilot areas in 2010. These are County Durham and Darlington,  Nottingham City, Lincolnshire, and Luton. A full assessment of the service in these areas will guide the  national roll out of the NHS 111 service.

5. For further information please contact  Department of Health press office on  020 7210 5221

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Thousands of patients are still having to share wards with members of the opposite sex, according to a Care Quality Commission survey of 69,000 hospital inpatients, although the situation is slightly better than it used to be. Respondents reported that while cleanliness and waiting times had improved…moreMixed wards (171)

NHS admin to be cut by 30 per cent
Thursday, May 20, 2010

The government has promised to reduce the amount of money spent on management and administration in the NHS by around 30 per cent.

In its programme for government, the coalition also said it was committed to an NHS that was free at the point of use and available to everyone based on need, not the ability to pay. It vowed to free NHS staff from political micromanagement, increase democratic participation in the NHS and make the NHS more accountable to the patients that it serves. In this way it will drive up standards, support professional responsibility, deliver better value for money and create a healthier nation.

Here are the main health commitments from the new programme document:
“• We will guarantee that health spending increases in real terms in each year of the Parliament, while recognising the impact this decision will have on other departments.
• We will stop the top-down reorganisations of the NHS that have got in the way of patient care. We are committed to reducing duplication and the resources spent on administration, and diverting these resources back to front-line care.
• We will significantly cut the number of health quangos.
• We will cut the cost of NHS administration by a third and transfer resources to support doctors and nurses on the front line.
• We will stop the centrally dictated closure of A&E and maternity wards, so that people have better access to local services.
• We will strengthen the power of GPs as patients’ expert guides through the health system by enabling them to commission care on their behalf.
• We will ensure that there is a stronger voice for patients locally through directly elected individuals on the boards of their local primary care trust (PCT). The remainder of the PCT’s board will be appointed by the relevant local authority or authorities, and the Chief Executive and principal officers will be appointed by the Secretary of State on the advice of the new independent NHS board. This will ensure the right balance between locally accountable individuals and technical expertise.
• The local PCT will act as a champion for patients and commission those residual services that are best undertaken at a wider level, rather than directly by GPs. It will also take responsibility for improving public health for people in their area, working closely with the local authority and other local organisations.
• If a local authority has concerns about a significant proposed closure of local services, for example an A&E department, it will have the right to challenge health organisations, and refer the case to the Independent Reconfiguration Panel. The Panel would then provide advice to the Secretary of State for Health.
• We will give every patient the right to choose to register with the GP they want, without being restricted by where they live.
• We will develop a 24/7 urgent care service in every area of England, including GP out-of-hours services, and ensure every patient can access a local GP. We will make care more accessible by introducing a single number for every kind of urgent care and by using technology to help people communicate with their doctors.
• We will renegotiate the GP contract and incentivise ways of improving access to primary care in disadvantaged areas.
• We will make the NHS work better by extending best practice on improving discharge from hospital, maximising the number of day care operations, reducing delays prior to operations, and where possible enabling community access to care and treatments.
• We will help elderly people live at home for longer through solutions such as home adaptations and community support programmes.
• We will prioritise dementia research within the health research and development budget.
• We will seek to stop foreign healthcare professionals working in the NHS unless they have passed robust language and competence tests.
• Doctors and nurses need to be able to use their professional judgement about what is right for patients and we will support this by giving front-line staff more control of their working environment.
• We will strengthen the role of the Care Quality Commission so it becomes an effective quality inspectorate. We will develop Monitor into an economic regulator that will oversee aspects of access, competition and price-setting in the NHS.
• We will establish an independent NHS board to allocate resources and provide commissioning guidelines.
• We will enable patients to rate hospitals and doctors according to the quality of care they received, and we will require hospitals to be open about mistakes and always tell patients if something has gone wrong.
• We will measure our success on the health results that really matter – such as improving cancer and stroke survival rates or reducing hospital infections.
• We will publish detailed data about the performance of healthcare providers online, so everyone will know who is providing a good service and who is falling behind.
• We will put patients in charge of making decisions about their care, including control of their health records.
• We will create a Cancer Drugs Fund to enable patients to access the cancer drugs their doctors think will help them, paid for using money saved by the NHS through our pledge to stop the rise in Employer National Insurance contributions from April 2011.
• We will reform NICE and move to a system of value-based pricing, so that all patients can access the drugs and treatments their doctors think they need.
• We will introduce a new dentistry contract that will focus on achieving good dental health and increasing access to NHS dentistry, with an additional focus on the oral health of schoolchildren.
• We will provide £10 million a year beyond 2011 from within the budget of the Department of Health to support children’s hospices in their vital work. And so that proper support for the most sick children and adults can continue in the setting of their choice, we will introduce a new per-patient funding system for all hospices and providers of palliative care.
• We will encourage NHS organisations to work better with their local police forces to clamp down on anyone who is aggressive and abusive to staff.
• We are committed to the continuous improvement of the quality of services to patients, and to achieving this through much greater involvement of independent and voluntary providers.
• We will give every patient the power to choose any healthcare provider that meets NHS standards, within NHS prices. This includes independent, voluntary and community sector providers.”

courtesy of http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=13016