As a retired nurse, I agree with your correspondents on the crisis in social care (Letters, 17 January), but it’s about time we all took some responsibility for providing for care in our old age ourselves. I cannot believe how so many people think it’s not going to happen to them, when the statistics are out there and they are already looking after elderly relatives. In this day and age, it should not be down to the state to look after everyone in later life.
While I agree we should be looked after in our own homes if possible, most of us do not live in suitable homes. If more communities of affordable, suitable retirement homes were built, and people didn’t delay the decision to move until they were forced to, only those who were unable to live independently would need to go into residential care.
We all need to face up to the fact that we will some day be old and, by making informed choices now, should hopefully not end up like the 500,000 people in one room in a care home, possibly being neglected and abused. Until we take more responsibility for ourselves, no amount of money will make any difference.
Sue Hester
Shepton Montague, Somerset
• It is commendable that 45 former directors of social services should draw urgent attention to the consequences of deprivation of funding for social needs. While there is much emphasis on the elderly, there is brief reference to the deficiencies in mental health provision. The diverging and complex needs of adults with learning disabilities receive no mention.
Have the massive deficiencies in this area of need been brought about through the lack of funding, or – as overwhelming evidence confirms – because local authorities have been given the task of implementing provision for these people, which they lacked the experience and skills to do? The outcome over recent decades has been a spiral of decline that will soon be irreversible.
To demand more finance without identifying a rational, affordable, achievable, and equitable national care in the community policy would only compound the errors of judgment that have brought untold misery and distress on far too many people already. An open and informed debate is urgently needed.
Charles Henley
Bournemouth
• I support the demand for reform of elderly social care to prevent more care homes disappearing under government cuts. The argument that we are all living longer does not mean there has to be less care available. Greater provision is a necessity, which, in addition, would provide more jobs for care workers and for construction workers employed in building or refurbishing care homes. Apprentices would also benefit and those who teach them. The cuts in public services have continued relentlessly under this government, and provision and funding issues need immediate action.
Petronella Hopkins
London
• I would like to concur with your comment that “care work … makes demands on the intellect, the emotions and the capacity for attentiveness which are hard to measure but go far beyond the physical” (Editorial, 17 January). I have just completed a piece of research with Paradigm, a training and consultancy agency, into the barriers in voluntary organisations that hinder the provision of good-quality services for people with learning disabilities. What emerged was the very sophisticated range of skills required by staff, including very nuanced understandings of when, and how much support to provide, how to judge when someone has to develop the courage to take the risks which are inherent in learning new skills, and the capacity to just “be there”, quietly and gently, when someone is experiencing grief or pain. And what is truly amazing is that so many staff actually do possess these skills. But their terms and conditions of employment and the specifications of the contracts under which such services are provided and regulated rarely, if ever, reflect this.
Dr Christina Schwabenland
University of Bedfordshire, Paradigm Consultancy and Development Agency
• You make good points about long hours in care work. On the dementia unit in the care home which I know, the staff work 12-hour shifts and often look exhausted. But many will beg you not to complain. They say that with the 12-hour shift they can do a full week’s work in three days and, for those with young children, this means fewer hours to be paid for childcare.
Rae Street
Littleborough, Lancashire
• I would challenge anyone to spend a day with my care staff, to witness how they carry out their duties with empathy and professionalism that far exceeds the wage they receive. Staff are personally responsible for administrating prescribed medication and any errors, either in administration or written logs, could be used in a court of inquiry and legal action taken against them.
Care staff can often be the only person our client sees throughout their day. Care staff become proficient in recognising change in a person’s wellbeing and can alert the appropriate professional quickly and often avert illness or infection in our most vulnerable clients. My most experienced staff have significant knowledge of symptoms, prescribed medication and creams, provide basic nursing care, including some tasks previously only offered by district nurses.
Throwing money at social care will not on its own address the crisis. The government and media portrayal of home care workers also needs to change. Home care workers are portrayed as unskilled “glorified cleaners”, and a recently heard term that appals me is “arse-wipers”. Promoting care work as a profession in its own right through a national campaign similar to the recent government teachers campaign, shown on UK television, would advocate the role of the care worker as a worthy occupation.
Jane Jones
Managing director, Applewood Support
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
We are all responsible for proper social care | Letters
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder