Commissioning

Geriatricians are, in many hospitals, now responsible for more than 50 per cent of in-patients. A recent article in the BMJ suggests that doctors’ way of working would not be accepted by businesses making decisions with far less impact and suggests that the old concept of the ward round is broken.

Despite geriatric medicine being one of the largest medical specialties in the UK, a majority of older people in hospital or community care aren't under the direct care of a geriatrician. There simply aren't enough of them to go around. Could Advanced Clinical or Nurse Practitioners support our growing number of frail patients?

The role of geriatricians and specialist health care professionals starts with identifying the care and treatment that best suits an older person’s individual needs and wishes, writes Eileen Burns, welcoming Independent Age’s new project, Doing care differently. 

Care homes routinely feature in the press and not always for the right reasons. Sadly the negative stories do little to help us all promote the amazing work that is being done with people who live in care homes up and down the country.

Benchmarking – where multiple providers compare their performance and practices using standardised measures – can provide a useful starting point for a processes of continual quality improvement and assurance in care homes, writes Adam Gordon.

The BGS welcomes the announcement in the Chancellor’s Budget Statement  on 8 March 2017, that the Government will be publishing a Green Paper in 2017 on the future financing of social care.