Care Homes and the NHS: The silent scandal

[Spiro]

Today's Daily Fail Headline -GP's voting to axe visits to care homes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35462112

 

[Beate]

Yeah I saw that - beggars belief. I hope this can be stopped.

 

[Kevinl]

Glasses went, dental care went and hearing aids are currently being privatised, anything that can be charged for is being charged for or being put in a position where the private option is the one you're being pushed towards.
GP's, some but not all want an easy life and anything as labour intensive as looking after the old isn't an earner. Children cost the NHS a lot of money too imagine anyone suggested charging schools for their care; school nurses, nitty Nora the bug explorer, height and weight checks and all the rest.
The old are a soft target and trident missiles don't pay for themselves nor does shaving 30 minutes off the train time from Manchester to London or any other of the things we "need" to be spending our money on.
This isn't a political point as I believe most, if not all of the vanity projects will continue no matter who is in power, the decisions where to spend and where to cut are pretty much generally agreed no matter who wins any number of elections.
K

 

[BR_ANA]

He hadn't even looked at mum,and said he'd placed a DNR on her notes! I phoned him and he said "your mum is old,has dementia,don't try and prolong her misery". No discussion with me,but I told him it was my decision.

I'm shocked. How can a GP do it?

 

[fizzie]

I heard of a case in the recent past where the GP came in the first time and didn't spot serious signs of poor care then the care home didn't get the GP in until his 'due day' because they had been 'told off' before and the patient had to be rushed to hospital and died and guess what ....the GP upped and left the practice and 'disappeared' so that he couldn't be questioned!

I was told that if as a relative there are concerns you can in fact call 111 from the care home but that you have to be there with the patient.

 

[jugglingmum]

When GPs renegotiated their contracts a while back, someone in Govt got their sums wrong, and GPs went from being paid less than hospital consultants to more. At the same time they managed to ditch their responsibility for out of hours etc.

I see several sets of GPs accounts that the place I work prepares and their income has shot up with these changes.

Kevin - as for schools paying, well they would only have to pay if they received this service - children have their height and weight recorded on school entry and a basic eyesight test, and then height and weight around age 11. As I understand it height and weight are only recorded for purposes of monitoring child obesity so not health related. School nurses are few and far between, think different councils have different policies, nit nurses disappeared a long time ago, I don't remember them as a child - although frankly given that a child can have nits appear overnight not sure of the point anyway.

 

[fizzie]

It seems to me that there is story after story after story about the failings of the NHS at every level from hospital to community and that no-one is actually doing anything about it. Money is waster, services are poor, compassion is virtually non-existant and many staff are in it for what they can get out of it. What happened to community, care, compassion and the love of doing something just because it helps.

 

[Pickles53]

The GP service at my mum's care home was exemplary. A GP made a regular visit one day every week. Relatives could ask to see him to discuss any concerns about a resident and ask for him to see a resident very easily. I also had several telephone discussions with him.

All in all much better than her GP while she was living at home who appeared to have no understanding of the implications of a diagnosis of dementia, messed up her repeat prescriptions, etc. etc.