Since the beginning of February, more than 28,000 people have registered interest in a job in social care via a Government-funded website, run by United Kingdom Homecare Association (UKHCA); www.carejobfinder.org. The site matches job hunters with employers who have potential vacancies throughout the sector.

There are now as many as 1,000 candidates registering on the site per day and 99 per cent of companies using the website to recruit are typically matched with at least one new potential recruit. The new figures come half-way through the Department of Health’s nationwide social care recruitment campaign, incorporating television and print advertising and face to face regional events.

The campaign is supported by research revealing that more than a third of people would consider switching into a career in social care, especially in younger age groups. Employers or employees interested in job roles in social care can register at www.carejobfinder.org

Care Services Minister, Phil Hope, said: “More and more people are considering a career in social care, which is brilliant news. Not only does it give people the chance to make a real difference to someone else’s life, it also offers great opportunities for career progression. We know there are thousands of vacancies in social care and any employers looking for enthusiastic candidates will find a wealth of them by using CareJobFinder as part of their recruitment plans.”

Colin Angel, Head of Policy and Communication at UKCHA commented: “The website is a great way of matching up the growing interest in the sector with the ongoing need for high numbers of recruits. With such a pool of talent to choose from, I’d encourage more employers to sign up. It’s not only useful for recruiting the ideal candidate, but can also help cut down what can sometimes be a lengthy recruitment processes.”

Officially opened by Lord Mayor of Liverpool Mike Storey in September, the shop stocks a wide range of goods, including clothing and books.  Marie Reynolds, Nugent Care’s Fundraising Manager, contributed enormously to ensuring the shop was ready and open on time, working alongside contacts from Tesco to ensure the layout of the shop and range of good offered would entice people through its doors – and, it seems, to good effect, as the anticipated target for the first day of trading was reached within hours of opening!

Although Tesco are providing ongoing support (through new items donated for sale and staff to work in the shop), shop manager Jeanette says that donations of good quality goods are always gratefully received – there is a particular need for women’s clothes at present – while volunteers to staff the shop are always needed.

Call Jeanette on 0151 737 2951 for more information.

Last year, The NHS: From Good To Great made clear the NHS’s continuing commitment to taking care services into the comunity. “There is still too much care organised in hospitals,” it said,”which best practice shows could be organised around patients at home or in community settings.”

Part of its vision of the NHS was for healthcare being delivered closer and closer to the patient. This is a continuation of Lord Darzi’s emphasis in High Quality Care for All upon providing convenient care closer to home – that vision of quality, personalised care remains key, then, to everything the NHS is striving to achieve.

The exciting news last week that more dialysis is to be performed at home, and more chemotherapy in the community, is therefore to be welcomed. You can read the Department of Health’s press release on this here. In addition, take a look at this report by the Audit Commission, which contains evidence that older people with the opportunity to be treated at home are happier – and that such a system not only pleases patients but increases efficiency.

The report said that most councils don’t know enough about the costs of their ageing population and they could do more to embrace preventive services and work more closely with other organisations. 

If councils don’t plan carefully as the number of older people increases each year, costs will increase, the report said. But councils need the right information to help make the right decisions and they should involve the people themselves in developing services. 

Commission chairman Michael O’Higgins said: “Today’s older people grew up with supermarkets and self-service, and tomorrow’s will use iPhones and the internet. Older people don’t want to become dependant, but councils need to help them help themselves. Most older people live at home, not in care homes. And the longer they do, the happier they are and the less they cost the taxpayer. Innovative, personalised services mean older people stay independent longer, saving public money.”

He went on: “There are huge financial pressures on councils in the years ahead, but redesigning services and exploiting technology can make them better, more efficient and more personal.”

One thing is for sure and that is that people are living longer and those that are aged ‘but well’ are better off in the own home until they can no longer stay there; they will then need top class residential care. On the other hand those that are aged ‘but unwell’ or ‘have some sort of dementia’ with need the care or nursing home earlier in their life.

Wrangling broke out after a Conservative health spokesman admitted the Tories needed more money to keep the elderly at home and would offer people a range of insurance schemes to fund long-term help.

The Liberal Democrat health spokesman, Norman Lamb, said that his Tory counterpart, Andrew Lansley, had accepted before going on a BBC political show this Sunday that Conservative plans would see people offered three voluntary insurance schemes.

One, which the Tories have already outlined, costing £8,000, would be for those who wish to be covered in the event they had to go into a care home. The second, said Lamb, was a new admission: a one-off payment of £10,000 to secure care for people in their own home. The third was a “cheaper, stripped down package for critical care at home”. “Having options within a voluntary scheme has potential perverse consequences. What happens if you want to switch out from one scheme to another?” said Lamb.

The Conservatives accepted that they were working on plans for “a top-up insurance policy for care at home” but said that they had offered only “illustrative examples” to the Liberal Democrats. “This is the sort of direction we are going but the numbers are being done,” said a spokesman for Lansley’s office.

The Conservative leadership had been keen to portray Labour as the party of a “death tax”, and targeted marginal seats last week with posters saying: “Now Gordon wants £20,000 when you die.” This was a reference to a possible £20,000 levy on estates, mooted in a green paper last summer, to pay for long-term care.

The posters ended attempts to reach a consensus in private, with Andy Burnham, the health secretary, claiming he had been “betrayed” by the Tories. However, Burnham’s aides were keen to stress the Conservatives had now admitted that their “costs do not add up”. “It’s simply not good enough for a party that wants to be in government,” an aide said.

That care service costs have become a central battleground in politics was highlighted by the Audit Commission, which has released a report warning that only a tenth of local councils have made any estimate of the financial impact of an ageing population, despite spending in the past decade on care services for older people rising by almost half to £9.1bn.

In an unusually frank assessment, the public spending watchdog said the fallout from the banking crisis would have a “significant impact” on public service spending, which would force the next government “to deal with climbing levels of public sector debt, but [with] less income from taxation”. At the same time, the commission said there would be increasing demand for benefits from an ageing population.

In a report, entitled Under Pressure, it said if care service costs increased with the population they could double by 2026 to £23bn . “Most councils don’t know enough about the costs of their ageing population to take important decisions,” said the report. The authors found a significant variation in care costs around the country, with some councils spending three times more than the average per person on some services. One council paid £2,405 a week supporting older people in a care home – 10 times what it costs for the most expensive home care.

Michael O’Higgins, chair of the Audit Commission, said that caring for people at home was key to controlling costs. “It can be done. In the Isle of Wight we have seen 69% of older people receiving care being supported in their own homes, an increase from 56% in just two years.”

Charities said the Audit Commission showed that the issue of social carewas now too urgent to be “bogged down by party political squabbling”.

Michelle Mitchell, charity director for Age Concern and Help the Aged, said: “All the parties must work together to forge a meaningful debate on the way ahead for social care. We would be happy to provide a neutral platform for this debate to take place if that’s what it takes for the parties to come together.”

Randeep Ramesh Social affairs editor
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 February 2010
Article history

Greenfield Court in Harrogate is a complex of ten homes, called “wise homes”, for older people. The flats and bungalows are equipped with state of the art assistive technologies which help them to live independently and safely. These include sensors that switch on the lights when a resident gets out of bed, temperature detectors to stop houses getting too hot or cold and flood detectors.

“High quality care and support should enable people to remain independent for longer,” said Mr Hope. “Telecare has an important role to play. North Yorkshire is a great example of innovative support that is breaking the mould and challenging perceptions of care. Less than 5% of people understand that telecare is available. This is why I wanted to come and help raise awareness.”

Mr Hope spoke to managers and local Government officials and then visited Greenfield Court residents to hear how telecare is making a difference to their lives.

One of these residents was 84-year-old Gwen Shepley, a former nurse who is staying in a smart home flat for telecare assessment, after which a tailored care package will be provided in her own home.

Ali Rogan, Group Marketing Director of the Tunstall Healthcare Group, who supply the equipment at Greenfield Court, explained the kind of support the flat offers Gwen.

“There is a sensor underneath the mattress. As soon as she gets out of bed the clock starts ticking. The lights go on automatically so she can see. If she isn’t back in bed within a certain time, say fifteen minutes, then staff are notified.”

Gwen is particularly pleased with her new watch, which is fitted with an alarm button.

“This allows her to call for help at any time,” said Ms Rogan. “She loves it. She needed a new watch, she said. It is an alternative to a pendent, which some prefer not to have as they see it a badge of infirmity. We’re trying to get away from that and make it less obtrusive.”

After visiting the flats Mr Hope paid an impromptu visit to the café area at the complex and spoke to more residents and staff.

“One lady said to me this is a lovely place to live,” he said. “She said she couldn’t think of a single thing to complain about. She said even if she did complain they’d put it right straight away. So it’s clearly a place that gives people the support that they need in a way that helps them to live the life they want to. It shows we are getting it right. And if we can get it right here we should be able to get it right across the country.”

North Yorkshire County Council has saved over £1 million through telecare over the last year. This money would otherwise have been spent on domiciliary or residential care. This cut the average person’s care costs by 38%, which is an average saving of £3,600 per person.

Derek Law, Corporate Director of Adult and Community Services, “This has got to be mainstream, not seen as unusual. To ensure that it is embedded you have to work very hard at training and raising awareness of its benefits in terms of cost too. Once you’ve embedded it like that, it really takes off.”

Telecare could prevent 160,000 people from entering residential care per year, with potential cost savings of £2.0 billion per year, according to Department of Health estimates.  However, 98% of UK adults are unaware that assistive technologies are an important part of social care, new research commissioned by the Department of Health has revealed.

Stakeholders, local government, and the voluntary and housing sectors came on board in the early days of the Harrogate project. There are now telecare champions in the region who go out and have regular meetings with a range of organisations. They are looking at ways to spread the technology beyond older people and using it to help people with physical and learning disabilities.

“This is one of the best examples in the country,” Mr Hope said. “Not only because the use of the equipment really does make a difference to people’s lives, but also all the different people who get involved with it. The GPs, the council, people who provide residential homes or sheltered accommodation – all these different people working together in partnership to make this happen in the interest of the person needing care and support.

“So what they’ve done here is not only get the kit right they’ve also got the relationships right. It means you can provide better quality care for people and that you can also save money.

“The kind of technology I’ve seen today can help people stay in their own homes and be part of their communities.”

Here was such a sound and solid piece of policymaking, rare long-term thinking about a wicked issue you wouldn’t expect just before an election. There might be few votes in it, with a political risk of a backlash. Last summer’s green paper on how to pay for social care was a model of how to approach an unpalatable problem with no easy answers. It was a coherent plan for financing a much needed National Care Service.

Sure enough, it was too good to be true. Gordon Brown, eager for an eye-catcher for his party conference speech, made an extravagant promise of free personal care at home for all those with “critical” needs. It blew the green paper out of the water by offering what the green paper and most experts agreed was impossible – the mirage that the state can pay for all care of the elderly. Andy Burnham, the health secretary, had laid out the reasons why at length as he put forward his proposed fairer ­insurance scheme. It is completely incompatible with this “free” plan of Brown’s – though now Burnham lamely says this is an excellent “interim”.

As under every previous government, those with money pay towards their own care. As we all live longer and need more care, the cost is growing, adding to the heavy pensions burden on younger generations. Luckily now that 70% of people own property, the cost can increasingly be shared between the state and those with the means to contribute. But Brown wanted a “free care” headline – though it is doubtful that a £670m free gift to voters in the middle of a great recession is a convincing way to buy support. Not even the charities for the aged whooped with glee at this one.

In the Lords this hastily assembled personal care at home bill was greeted by social care experts with a raspberry, in speech after speech. However, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats decided to vote for it for fear of falling into one of Gordon Brown’s badly camouflaged elephant traps, and being branded as anti-free care during the election. But the social care experts in the Lords – objecting to a brief bill with no published regulations explaining how it will work – may over the next weeks stop it being enacted before the election.

Today the Association of Directors of Social Services (ADSS), the local authority managers who would have to implement this free care, reported on why Brown’s plan won’t work, and certainly not at the price the government claims. Nothing about social care is simple – not least because each local authority offers different levels of care at different rates and interprets the official criteria arbitrarily: that’s why we need a National Care Service.

The government plan offers free home care for those with “critical” needs, but not for those with only “substantial” or “moderate” needs. To be “critical” someone must score four serious needs, such as inability to feed themselves, go to the toilet or get out of bed. They will get £100 worth of free care, but, say the social service directors, that only buys six and a half hours of care a week – nothing like enough for people so frail, who need several visits a day and often two carers at a time to help with lifting.

Another problem: 70% of councils bundle together “critical” and “substantial” into one category. They will have trouble separating them, so as to offer only the “critical” bit free to those who can afford to pay the rest – the “critical” better off will still have to pay for whatever is defined as the “substantial” and “moderate” bits of their care out their own pockets. So expect thousands of challenges to the pricing decisions made. The ADSS says free care will cost twice what the government plans. Councils are being told to foot a large slice of the bill from extra efficiency savings, on top of this year’s already required 4.7% efficiency savings. This breaks the usual protocol for central government to pay for any new services it demands of local authorities.

Here are the big objections: those with little money were never paying anyway, so free care does nothing for them. The beneficiaries are those who currently pay but will now get it free. No one knows how many better off people are already paying for their own care privately, and will now claim their free help. Any family that has used the care system knows it desperately needs money and more and better trained staff for less rushed, kinder care, allowing time to talk to the lonely and sick. But paying out in the middle of an economic decline for the better off to get more free care is no answer.

Part of the plan is a good idea: to ensure everyone gets six weeks – £1,000 worth – of intensive rehabilitation at home on leaving hospital to prevent them shuttling straight into residential homes. But there is no good reason to make it free, redistributing state money towards the richer. Does it contravene clause 1 of the equality bill, which expects public bodies to consider the effect of their policies on inequality?

The excellent plan in the green paper suggests a long-term solution, fair and sensible. On retirement anyone with the money would pay a lump sum – around £20,000 – to cover all future care, at home or nursing home. They would never need to pay another penny. If they own a home but have no money, the sum can be taken from their estate after death. Those with neither savings nor property would be paid for by the state.

That spreads the risk: one in six people end up needing residential care, and may have to sell their home and spend all that they hoped to leave to their children. This way no one loses everything, and all who can will pay something. The Daily Mail didn’t like it, decrying a “New stealth tax on the middle classes“, who would be “unfairly penalised.” Could the Mail’s moans have anything to do with this sudden “free care” offer?

One benefit of devolution is the real-life social experiments it offers as each nation adopts different social policies. But the chance to learn from one another is often ignored at Westminster. The Scottish parliament brought in similar “free care” with a great fanfare, but it cost twice what had been planned: 36% more people entered the system, including the better off who had been buying private care.

Creating a National Care Service is one of those long-term polices that needs broad consensus between the parties on old age planning. It is no subject for a quick electoral whizzbang.

What an excellent article from Polly Toynbee who is a columnist for the Guardian and president of the Social Policy Association. She was formerly BBC social affairs editor, columnist and associate editor of the Independent, co-editor of the Washington Monthly and a reporter and feature writer for the Observer… What’s your thoughts?

They’re Local Involvement Networks – individuals and community groups, such as faith groups and residents’ associations, which work together to improve health and social care services. There are 150 around England, and aim to give people a strong voice in the delivery of health services – to identify their needs and demands, and to hold local services to them.

New research based on a collation of data gathered between 2007 and 2009 has shown that people in England will use the NHS 2,153 times in their lifetime – or once a fortnight. An Ipsos MORI poll conducted earlier this month found that, despite this regular take-up, only 22% of people have got involved in determining how their local services could better suit their needs – even though 60% have stated they would like to have a say!

This is where LINks come in. 1330 prescriptions, 31 visits to A&E and 12 ambulance journeys in a lifetime is a lot of involvement with the NHS – it makes sense for us to try and get as involved as possible in the shape of our local provision. Using local needs and priorities to lead health services was, of course, a key recommendation of Lord Darzi in High Quality Care for All – and the NHS Constitution made official that had a right to expect “your local NHS to assess the health requirements of the local community and to commission and put in place the services to meet those needs as considered necessary.”

You can learn more about LINks here. Get involved and refresh your local services.