So what do we think of this? Paying GPs to diagnose dementia

[tre]

I am cynical regarding this....

because if someone has a diagnosis of dementia then does not this then impact on their using their assets which might be required to fund care in the future. I do not think this is a way of helping people with dementia but a way of the government maybe ensuring that more money is retained for future care costs.
I fought to get my mum diagnosed and we were eventually told she had vascular dementia. This was followed by one trip to the memory clinic where basically we were told there was no treatment and left to get on with it.
I am not suggesting that most people would disagree that those that are fortunate enough to pay towards their care should not do so. What with all the cuts the money has to come from somewhere and we should support those less fortunate than ourselves but I just think this might be a huge con trick from the government.
Tre

 

[Saffie]

Once my husband was referred by the GP to the consultant psychiatrist who diagnosed his vascular dementia with possibly Alzheimer's included, the GP had no further contact with my husband for his dementia apart from doing out the Aricept as prescribed by the Memory Clinic.

 

[jimbo 111]

I had not noticed this thread and posted a newspaper link
on a different thread
My apologies
jimbo



Why pay GPs to identify people with dementia if we can’t help them?



Maybe controversial
I do not usually comment on the posts I make on these subjects, but I fully agree with this
jimbo


Why pay GPs to identify people with dementia if we can’t help them?
There’s no effective treatment yet for dementia. So rather than paying doctors to spot new cases, we should spend the £55 where it will make a difference


The state of community services such as district nursing and the provision of social services is patchy and often woefully inadequate. But lots of elderly housebound people need a district nurse to visit to give them a flu jab, or a chiropodist to provide foot care or help with showering. These needs may be compounded by memory loss, or not. But we’re not providing these vital services across the board at the moment.
What’s the point of spending a lot of money on identifying more people with early stages of dementia, who may be functioning well at home, when we’re not providing decent basic care to those individuals who we’ve already identified as being in need?
Advocates of this recent drive will argue that it’s not binary; we should be able to improve detection and also provide more services. And in an ideal world with unlimited budgets, they’d be right. But back in the real world, is it really money well spent


Read more
http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...-spot-dementia

 

[garnuft]

because if someone has a diagnosis of dementia then does not this then impact on their using their assets which might be required to fund care in the future. I do not think this is a way of helping people with dementia but a way of the government maybe ensuring that more money is retained for future care costs.
I fought to get my mum diagnosed and we were eventually told she had vascular dementia. This was followed by one trip to the memory clinic where basically we were told there was no treatment and left to get on with it.
I am not suggesting that most people would disagree that those that are fortunate enough to pay towards their care should not do so. What with all the cuts the money has to come from somewhere and we should support those less fortunate than ourselves but I just think this might be a huge con trick from the government.
Tre

I am inclined to agree.

A massive change is needed to fund Social care.

Social Services have been underfunded for years, somehow we have all allowed this to continue.

All the talking is about the NHS...we face a 30 BILLION shortfall in NHS funding by 2020, this doesn't take into account the already underfunded Social Services.

We need as individuals to revue tax policies.

What do we want to do with our money?

Do we want to pay more to enable better care to be provided?

We need to collect money from the big Corporations that don't pay tax, to close the loopholes that enable people to avoid paying tax.
We need to clamp down on housing tourists, not just foreign ownership but any holiday home, I want more than the Mansion tax, it's anathema to me for there to be empty 2nd homes when we have people living in expensive state-funded inadequate accommodation or houses standing derelict while the owner just sits on the assets as property prices increase.

We need to abolish universal benefits and make them means-tested...winter fuel allowance and child benefit.

We need to increase the basic rate of National Insurance and either stop capping local authorities or have a Department of Social Services with it's own budget from Central government.

We need to lower the rate of inheritance tax and then people will buy a house to live in rather than as an inheritance to leave their children.
We should punitively tax buy-to-let owners and discourage private landlords.

We should only allow Social Housing builds and we should begin a programme of building immediately.

We should increase the rate of VAT.

We must find a way to fund the needs of the society we want to live in.

That will put a LOT of noses out of joint but so did the establishing of the new Britain that emerged after the second World War.

We need to build on that once again, we need a new way of thinking, a new beginning.

More tax, more services, One Nation.
Inclusive, fair and equal.

 

[Oxy]

I'm afraid it is a gimmick. Unless it helps the patient or indeed research into effective medication/prevention, I'm not sure anything will really change for our loved ones.
The so called health check is again something the practice gets paid for. I saw a care assistant although the letter stated a nurse. She put incorrect info on my records to save helping I guess. I complained. My friends who have had it feel the same-waste of time. They only give exercise classes to those where it is plainly obvious that their lifestyle is incorrect.
Just to fill coffers of practice will lead to diagnoses that may be rushed and incorrect by the unscrupulous doctors-lets face it most are honest and there for the right reasons but in every profession there are bad apples.
Nhs needs proper adequate funding by powers that be in ways well outlined by previous posters.

 

[stanleypj]

I am inclined to agree.

A massive change is needed to fund Social care.

Social Services have been underfunded for years, somehow we have all allowed this to continue.

All the talking is about the NHS...we face a 30 BILLION shortfall in NHS funding by 2020, this doesn't take into account the already underfunded Social Services.

We need as individuals to revue tax policies.

What do we want to do with our money?

Do we want to pay more to enable better care to be provided?

We need to collect money from the big Corporations that don't pay tax, to close the loopholes that enable people to avoid paying tax.
We need to clamp down on housing tourists, not just foreign ownership but any holiday home, I want more than the Mansion tax, it's anathema to me for there to be empty 2nd homes when we have people living in expensive state-funded inadequate accommodation or houses standing derelict while the owner just sits on the assets as property prices increase.

We need to abolish universal benefits and make them means-tested...winter fuel allowance and child benefit.

We need to increase the basic rate of National Insurance and either stop capping local authorities or have a Department of Social Services with it's own budget from Central government.

We need to lower the rate of inheritance tax and then people will buy a house to live in rather than as an inheritance to leave their children.
We should punitively tax buy-to-let owners and discourage private landlords.

We should only allow Social Housing builds and we should begin a programme of building immediately.

We should increase the rate of VAT.

We must find a way to fund the needs of the society we want to live in.

That will put a LOT of noses out of joint but so did the establishing of the new Britain that emerged after the second World War.

We need to build on that once again, we need a new way of thinking, a new beginning.

More tax, more services, One Nation.
Inclusive, fair and equal.

Absolutely spot-on Gwen. You should be leading the Labour Party!

And thanks for getting my day off to a good start, even if I know that the chances of any of it being implemented are zero.

 

[jimbo 111]

Like stanleypj I concur with garnufts sentiments and agree with him that the chances of any of it being implemented are zero
But bearing in mind that my logo is
”Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world - indeed it is the only thing that ever does" (Margaret Meade)[/B

perhaps I should be a bit more encouraging and take solace in the certainty that there are at least three of us
jimbo

Ps but I know a few more members are of like mind
J

 

[LYN T]

Make that four Jimbo

I agree with Gwen's post.

Gwen-I wish you had time to be a politician

Love

Lyn T

 

[jeany123]

Make that four Jimbo

I agree with Gwen's post.

Gwen-I wish you had time to be a politician

Love

Lyn T

Five I agree with Gwen as well,

 

[Lindy50]

Five and three quarters ....I agree with almost all of Gwen's post

You have to have some debate, don't you, to get things done? And as far as I can see, no-one nationally or locally is leading that debate. They're still all talking about provision of an extra billion or so here or there to the existing system....not good enough!

Lindy xx

 

[gringo]

A massive change is needed to fund Social care.
Social Services have been underfunded for years, somehow we have all allowed this to continue.
We must find a way to fund the needs of the society we want to live in.
More tax, more services, One Nation.
Inclusive, fair and equal.

I apologise for filleting your post Gwen, I agree completely with all of it. There can’t be any doubt about what needs to be done.
The problems start when we begin to discuss the ‘how’ all these good things are to be accomplished. In a word ‘Bureaucracy.’

“In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control, and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.[Pournelle's law of Bureaucracy]”
― Jerry Pournelle

"Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.” ~ Oscar Wilde.

 

[tre]

Well said Gwen.
Tre

 

[Witzend]

I think this is pretty typical of politicians to be honest - they reason that it sounds good, and makes it look as if they are doing something about whatever it is. I don't suppose the majority of politicians have much of a clue about dementia - they have a vague idea that there is medication for it, so to them it's a simple matter of getting diagnosed followed by treatment. Which = doing something about it, according to them.

Presumably most of them have no idea that medication does not always work, and in any case is not always appropriate, and that all too often diagnosis simply serves to slap an official label on what relatives already have a pretty good idea of. Plus of course, plenty of people who HAVE been diagnosed struggle to get any or enough help, or rather more often their carers struggle on their behalf.

 

[Wirralson]

A barmy idea in my opinion. Typical Tory Toffs rubbish. I think this will lose them a lot of votes in the coming election.

The money would be better directed towards co-ordination of services and patient care.

Doctors get paid enough money to do their job including all the other perks and payments from the pharma companies.

It's time they were brought back under the NHS and into the real world again.

It makes me really angry when all they seem to do is chuck money at daft ideas and not tackle the real issues head-on.

Nothing to do with ideology, but part of the nonsense intrinsic when dealing with GPs. Essentially the GP lobby takes the view with pretty much anything that "we're too busy, so if you want us to do anything specific, pay us extra, or we'll continue normal jogging." "Stuffing their mouths with gold" (as Aneurin Bevan put it when buying the GPs co-operation to the embryonic NHS) has been pretty much SOP since the NHS was set up. (Anyone remember "Docker" Stevenson of the BMA and his parody of FDR's "two chickens in every pot" speech "two Mercedes in every garage"!) GPs are (essentially) running a small-business model and now have substantial, if indirect and constrained, influence over how healthcare is provided. It's pretty much a textbook example of producer capture, and very difficult to counter given the near-total stranglehold GPs have over the health economy and the apparently unassailable belief in the UK in free at the point of delivery health care as an unconditional right. For as long as you have those two elements in play, meaningful change is pretty much impossible.

W

 

[Wirralson]

Absolutely spot-on Gwen. You should be leading the Labour Party!

And thanks for getting my day off to a good start, even if I know that the chances of any of it being implemented are zero.

Which, given their economic consequences, is, sadly, just as well.

 

[garnuft]

Gladdened to discover there are more of us with a social conscience and willingness to pay than the media in general would suggest.

Instead of people sitting around spreading an agenda of fear, setting ordinary people up against each other,
slating the disabled,
blaming immigrants (whose taxes will be paying for pensions, NHS etc.)
ignoring the elderly except to give them free tv licenses and winter fuel allowance,
the chronic ignoring of mentally ill, imposing a bedroom tax,
allowing private landords to buy their houses with housing benefit payments,
allowing zero-hour contracts,
allowing workers rights to be eroded,
keeping a minimum wage instead of a living wage...

instead of these fear-mongers working out how it can't work or how to avoid it working, perhaps their energy would be better spent in working out ways in which it can work if we disentangle ourselves from the old order.

Sweden is a good example of higher taxes being acceptable to a populace, Denmark
too.
Their Society's haven't crashed and burnt.
They have public services to be envied.

This is out of date but gives an indication of our rich UK and the amount of GDP spent on health care.
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS

I also think the state should own the utility companies and the railways. So there!

 

[stanleypj]

I also think the state should own the utility companies and the railways. So there!

Snap!

The interesting thing is that polling suggest that a majority of the electorate agree.

Sadly, none of the three main parties are listening.

 

[Wirralson]

Sweden is a good example of higher taxes being acceptable to a populace, Denmark
too.
Their Society's haven't crashed and burnt.
They have public services to be envied.

This is out of date but gives an indication of our rich UK and the amount of GDP spent on health care.
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS

I also think the state should own the utility companies and the railways. So there!

I'd question your rose-tinted judgment of Swedish and Danish public services - a friend who is a social worker qualified in both countries is pretty scathing about Danish social services provision. They may be better than in parts of the UK, but small, homogeneous societies with populations under 7 million aren't going to have the same issues as a nation with 9 times the population.

A part Swedish friend whose cousins work in the Swedish public sector have some pretty depressingly familiar tales of budget cuts and problems in allocating services. Also in Denmark note that healthcare is funded by a separate tax (a form of compulsory insurance, in effect). And Swedish taxes are by no means as high as believed - Sweden income tax minimum rate is around 28.89% (although the thresholds differ from the UK) and the maximum is 57%. Payroll tax (=NI) is much higher but actually reduces taxable income. VAT varies, with three rates (25% or 12% or 6%).

And your World Bank indicator is to be treated with caution - for the US spends much more as a % of GDP but gets much less for its $. Spending boasts are just about the most inefficient way of directing expenditure. The UK is one of the few countries in the world to have healthcare that is free at the point of delivery and I am afraid a lot of its problems stem from that simple fact. There are good reasons why few other countries have gone down that route.

 

[jimbo 111]

Gladdened to discover there are more of us with a social conscience and willingness to pay than the media in general would suggest.

Instead of people sitting around spreading an agenda of fear, setting ordinary people up against each other,
slating the disabled,
blaming immigrants (whose taxes will be paying for pensions, NHS etc.)
ignoring the elderly except to give them free tv licenses and winter fuel allowance,
the chronic ignoring of mentally ill, imposing a bedroom tax,
allowing private landords to buy their houses with housing benefit payments,
allowing zero-hour contracts,
allowing workers rights to be eroded,
keeping a minimum wage instead of a living wage...

instead of these fear-mongers working out how it can't work or how to avoid it working, perhaps their energy would be better spent in working out ways in which it can work if we disentangle ourselves from the old order.

Sweden is a good example of higher taxes being acceptable to a populace, Denmark
too.
Their Society's haven't crashed and burnt.
They have public services to be envied.

This is out of date but gives an indication of our rich UK and the amount of GDP spent on health care.
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS

I also think the state should own the utility companies and the railways. So there!

Ooower !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So there![/

Best wishes
jimbo

 

[garnuft]

Anecdotal quotes mean zilch Wirralson, didn't you know that?

And free at the point of care is a provision that will NEVER be discounted no matter how many statistics get thrown at it...why?

Because it is the right thing to do.

Higher taxation IS the answer.

Oh and fewer reactionist number crunchers and more people with vision would help.

National Insurance is a compulsory tax on earnings...ALL taxes are compulsory insurance.