August 03, 2006
Thursday, 3rd August 2006
Greetings from Angela Gifford, Proprietor of Able Community Care, and welcome to the Able Newsflash, published by email every Thursday morning.
If you enjoy reading it please forward it to any other person who may also find it of interest.
Alternatively, they can subscribe directly for their own copy each week from our website: http://www.uk-care.com
Care News
NHS Trusts fine Social Services when patients are fit to be discharged but the services they need are not yet in place, e.g. because funding/care is not yet in place, or a residential/nursing home placement has not been finalised, etc. then the Trusts fine the Local Authority concerned, per day.Many Authorities are finding that the number of days that they are having to leave patients in hospital is increasing. For the period September 05 to April 06, Hertfordshire had patients staying 331 days after the date of their discharge, Oxfordshire had 285.
Wiltshire Social Services quadrupled the amount they pay the NHS in fines from £6,900 to £26,700 between April 2005 and April 2006.
The fining situation also can cause patients to be discharged before they are well enough to leave hospital or to return home without the opportunity for full rehabilitation and recovery. This results in a growing number of elderly people being re-admitted or returning to Accident and Emergency.
(Source Age Concern)
Agincare, based in the South West has won a contract to provide care services in the Swindon area. The contract is to provide care to individuals in their own homes.
The company will also be providing a home cuisine service, delivering hot meals to people who require them. The company has purpose built delivery vehicles.
Originally established fifteen years ago in Dorset, the company provides services up to the Midlands area.
In-House News
Applications to become live-in carers this week have come from two people with nursing qualifications, two people with NVQ 2 and one person with NVQ 3.Current Able Community Care Carers; Brenda Chirwan, Mary Vincent and Cookie Chinamhora, have all successfully completed NVQ 2 training in the past few weeks.
Potential new client posts have been visited in Coventry and Hampshire.
Risk assessments/reviews/visits have taken place in Nottinghamshire. Somerset and South Wales.
Meeting has taken place with Carmarthenshire Social Services about the services provided by Able Community Care.
New edition of the Able Community Care Gazette has been published. This is a bi-monthly publication and can be sent out, free, on a regular basis. Please apply directly to Ablemg@aol.com if you would like to receive copies.
Interesting Statistics
Who qualifies for free NHS care?In the last few weeks many newspaper inches have been given over to people who are having to pay for their own nursing care in nursing homes. On 23rd July, Panorama devoted a whole programme to the issue. It is estimated that many thousands of people are paying for health care which should be free. Similarly, thousands of people are having their care paid for by their local authority, which in many cases should also be paid for by the NHS.
The definition given in the Panorama programme concerning "Who qualifies for free NHS care" was given as:
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Decisions about who qualifies for free continuing NHS care are based on outcome of a court case in 1999 called The Coughlan Test. The test says that if a person’s primary need is for health care then the NHS is legally responsible for funding the whole package of care in England and Wales. Social services are only legally responsible if the nursing care that the person needs is merely incidental or ancillary to the provision of the accommodation.
Age Concern estimates that of the 100,000 people who could be eligible for fully funded nursing care in homes, only 25,000 - assessed as being sick enough to have their costs met by the NHS - received state funding last year.
In The UK there are approx. 166,000 financial advisors. Since October 2004 advising on long term care insurance has been regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). With an ever increasing number of elderly people needing to fund their care this area is seen as a high risk advice area.
To eliminate this risk the FSA have brought in an appropriate examination which is certificated. The Certificate in Financial Planning and Long Term Care (CF8) should ensure that any person who is awarded this certificate is competent to give any person thinking about long term care planning safe and appropriate advice.
If existing financial advisors wish to continue giving advice about long term care planning they must pass the examination before October 2006, otherwise they should cease giving advice in this area.
Currently, the number of advisors who have passed the exam and been awarded the certificate is the very low number of approx. 13,000.
We hope you have enjoyed reading this and "see you next week".
Best Wishes,
Angela Gifford, Proprietor
Able Community Care.
Able Community Care is a nationwide provider of Live-in Care services.
Relative Care Solutions provides essential information for anyone who lives or works away from their elderly relatives, (subscription based).
Able Personal Litigation Service is an Expert Witness Service provided to both the insurance industry and personal accident litigation solicitors.