You will recall the Budget 2009 announced £75 million of funding for the Care First Careers initiative, which has the ambition to help create up 50,000 job opportunities for young people in the adult social care sector. Social care employers will receive a £1000 subsidy for every eligible unemployed person they take on. Following a pilot programme, [...]

Home care, nursing home and care home experts discuss compliance with the Care Quality Commission’s new guidance Experts decode what the Care Quality Commission’s 275-page document on meeting new standards means for residential and domiciliary care providers and adult placements. Since 2008 registered providers have received a quality rating (zero to three stars), with poorer performers [...]

The government has done little to improve take-up of benefits among pensioners in the past six years and should refocus its efforts to reduce poverty, according to a report published today by Housing 21. The housing and care organisation, which last reported on the issue in 2003, said up to one-third of pensioners were not taking [...]

UK researchers have developed a technique which could lead to an eye examination to find Alzheimer’s and other illnesses before symptoms manifest. The scientists, from University College London, have developed ‘fluorescent markers’ which join on to dying cells, and which can be observed within the retina and show that brain cells are dying. The researchers [...]

The first of a planned chain of up to 30 private hospitals run as John Lewis-style, employee partnerships was launched in Bath yesterday, increasing competition with NHS trusts for patients and health contracts. Ambitious growth plans unveiled by Circle Health involve employing up to 10,000 staff through an investment of £1.5bn in a chain of clinics [...]

Millions of older people who take drugs for high blood pressure or heart problems can more than halve their risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, according to research. Use of angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) is linked to a “striking decrease” in the chance of getting the condition or of it progressing, especially in men, says a study published [...]

2000 The Care Standards Act What it did Led to the establishment of the General Social Care Council in England and the Care Council for Wales in 2001. It followed two white papers in 1998 and 1999, Modernising Social Services and Building for the Future, which highlighted concerns about failures and low public confidence in [...]

Depression is a problem for over 2.9 million people over Christmas, according to Dr Gowrisunkur consultant psychiatrist from the Priory. More than 2.9 million people in the UK are diagnosed as having depression  at any one time.  As many as one in three people will be affected by depression at some point in their lives. People [...]

An explosion in the number of people aged over 85 over the coming years will put ‘profound’ pressure on health and social care services, research has shown. The number of over 85s will increase by one third by 2020 putting extra burden on the NHS and social services, the study found. It could mean almost two [...]

Merry Christmas

The Department of Health and Ofcom have today announced that a new three-digit number (111) will be piloted in three regions next year. You might remember this idea from the Next Stage Review, High Quality Care for All: ‘…we should consider options to introduce a new three-digit telephone number to help people find the right local service [...]

Secretary of State for Health Andy Burnham said “There are still huge challenges in the care and support system. The Green Paper sought people’s views on how we resolve those and create a sustainable system for the long term. In our view, those with the greatest needs cannot wait, and we cannot stand still in meeting [...]

A major part of aging in place is living in your home safely and independently. Diabetes can impact your independence, but you can limit its impact. Education is key. Atherosclerosis occurs when deposits of fats, cholesterol, calcium, and other substances build up in the arteries and cause a plaque buildup in the lining of the [...]

UKHCA, the homecare sector’s professional association, has welcomed the government’s commitment to free personal care in the Queen’s Speech. The proposals, if correctly implemented, will recognize people’s general preference for care at home as an alternative to residential care. However, we need more detail on how the new system will operate and be costed. While [...]

Death and dying remain one of the last taboos in our society. Most people would imagine that their GP would be able to talk to them about the care they want at the end of their lives. But in fact more than two-thirds of GPs have not discussed preferences for their own end-of-life care with [...]

“We welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment in the Queen’s speech to reform the current adult care system. However, our evidence shows that for any new system to work it must be fair, transparent and sustainable. Too many users of the current system are left in the dark to struggle with inadequate services. At the moment [...]

Legislation introducing a new registration system for all regulated health and adult social care services in England has now been laid before Parliament. To help social care providers get ready for registration, CQC has published two short guides on its website providing an overview of how it plans to progress registration (for homecare providers between April 2010 – October 2010 [...]

High Quality Care for All and the local visions developed by Strategic Health Authorities that accompanied it set an ambitious goal of putting quality at the heart of the NHS by making it its organising principle. Achieving this goal will require the greatest movement for change in the 60 years since the NHS was created to [...]

Medical recruiters have given a mixed response to a government proposal that by 2013 all new nurses recruited by the NHS will have to have a degree. New courses lasting up to four years will replace the two or three year nursing diploma courses, which are currently the minimum entry level required for those joining [...]

It’s a year since we first started talking to NHS organisations about our ‘customer care in the NHS’ package of research. And I can now tell you that we’ve successfully delivered our very first piece of customer care work – to NHS Sefton. With customer care being a topic of discussion amongst the team for the [...]