NHS Continuing Care – there have been stories of people in dire circumstances who have not been eligible – of appeals to the omsbusman – of there being a review of this whole system. Perhaps we are now benefiting from that.
Anna’s mother, in a wheelchair, unable to feed herself, after a series of strokes – was eligible only for £70 a week as the nursing care component of her nursing home costs – she was one of those statistics of people who had to sell their homes to pay for their care. So, when she died in 2002, she could not leave anything for Anna , who was needing care herself by then.
Now the NHS has agreed to pay for Anna’s care. Well, not by right – not like when you and I go to the GP with depression. But she has been assessed by a panel. And they have agreed. For six months.
Should we be celebrating? I am feeling confused, having been so used to the financial costs being integral to the illness that I am finding it hard to separate them.
We don’t know yet what it will mean for the care that Anna gets. We have been dependent on the Home Care team from social services, but we will probably not have them after this. Their managers will be pleased to be rid of us, as we use too many resources, even though we pay for them. It is an opportunity to think again about the care that Anna needs and who could provide it..
Her new status does not make any difference to her illness, which gets worse by the day.
The social services carer is late this morning. The care has to continue …
If we separate out the financial cost we can look more clearly at Anna and her Alzheimers. That could be more depressing even, without the distraction of the monthly bills to pay.
posted by Tim @ 9:06 AM
1 Comments:
From Miranda,
Dear Tim - Continuing care NHS - this must be good news, but ominously only for six months. Will this mean a further assessment and panel every six months entailing further anxiety and uncertainty about continuity every time? And what of the NHS and its market? As I read in today's Guardian, Trusts may be able to provide patient care but bust the budget for commissioning PCTs as they do so, and then find themselves penalised and having to freeze their own posts. So a no win situation for everyone, not least of all the patients. My friend John who died this August at home had been granted Continuing Care but again on a non continuous basis. His needs would have been assessed again. In the event he died before this had to happen but beforehand he talked warmly and with appreciation about extremely good care, although this was mixed at times when an insensitive nurse substituted for the one he had got used to. But you and Anna are already used to this. I was so sorry to hear that Daisy had had to leave as she struck me as someone with an amazing capacity for sensitive steady warm and comforting practicality. But that was her own natural skill and personality, rather than simply an attribute of a Social Services job description. During my own 30 years as an NHS employee I found an immense shift from an initial recognition and valuation of my vocational skills which my training had emphasised to the bureaucratic evaluation and regulation of competencies and evidence based delivery. The shift was from a depressive concern for the promotion of personal quality to a persecutory regulation which assumed that I would be late for patients, or otherwise not honour my contract unless I could demonstrate that I had. This is not a climate in which personal and internalised self worth and self development in the interests of patients is valued. I had the sense in the last 10 years in particular that my work in the NHS was only valued by management if I could demonstrate a competitive edge in a business plan which did not in the least relate to the clinical experience of being with patients. I suppose this is to say I hope Daisy feels recognised and appreciated not just by her clients and their friends, but also by her managers.
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