Health Care Chaos

Age Concern warns that the Government?s new free nursing care scheme for people in care homes due to come into force on October 1^st may cause chaos.

Confusion and chaos could reign next week when the new so-called ?free? nursing care for the elderly in care homes is introduced in Britain.

Age Concern warn that older people may be bitterly disappointed when they realise how little difference ?free? nursing care scheme, which comes into force on October 1^st, will make to the fees they pay to care homes.

The new system of funding is supposed to work on the basis that older people requiring long term care will qualify for one of the three levels of care and receive £35, £70 and £110 a week towards their home care fees, depending on their need at assessment. However, the Government have so far failed to issue guidelines on the way the new system is to work. Now Age Concern are arguing that there are a whole host of reasons why the new system will fail.

They warn that:

The definition of ?nursing care? is narrow and artificial. Free nursing care is limited to the care provided by a registered nurse but ignores the major role of nursing and healthcare assistants.

Most older people will see very little difference in their fees, and will still have to pay for the major element of their care ? their personal care. Even the Department of Health have put the word ?free? into quotation marks.

Nursing home residents and their relatives still have no idea how the new system will affect them. Residents have received no information about what the new system will mean to them.

There will be confusion about how health authorities will pay nursing homes from the 1^st October onwards and before nurses have had any time to assess all the residents who currently pay for their own care. Age Concern say they are scared they will place everyone in the lowest ?band? of nursing care until the assessments are carried out.

There has been no guidance from the Department of Health and no decision as to whether people who are initially assessed for low band nursing care may be able to file backdated claims if they are later assessed to have need high band care all along.

Complexities

Gordon Lishman, Director General of Age Concern England says: ?Once the system is introduced on Monday, it won?t be long before we start to see the complexities and mayhem that the new rules will throw up. Once again, older people will be the victims of this.

?The new system also places an extra burden on nurses and nursing managers, who will be placed in the unenviable position of carrying out the rationing of older people?s individual care, when their first priority is caring for older people.?

Age Concern, among countless other organisations, will continue to exert pressure on Westminster?s politicians to sort out this mess as a matter of urgency. Older people should not be penalised for needing long-term care.

?Levels of indignation about the system have been worsened by the fact that older people in Scotland will be getting their personal and nursing care paid for. It is time the Government finally listened to older people, and the recommendations of its own Royal Commission.?

Scottish Example

Pensioners? leader Rodney Bickerstaffe has welcomed the decision by the Scottish Executive to provide free personal and nursing care to older people north of the border from April next year.

As President of the National Pensioners Convention (NPC), Mr. Bickerstaffe is expected to use the decision by the Scottish Parliament to put pressure on the Government at next week?s Labour party conference in Brighton, to introduce the same policy.

Says Mr. Bickerstaffe: ?The Government must realise that the issue of health care and older people isn?t going to disappear. Pensioners are angry that they have to pay for basic health services, get treated differently because of their age and even have their pension reduced if they stay in hospital.

?The Government have painted themselves into a corner over the issue of long-term care. Ministers claim that helping someone to have a bath is not nursing care and therefore cannot be free of charge ? but Scotland have shown how it can be done.?

By Andrea Kon

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