Primary and Community Care

In case you missed it, June of this year saw the publication of ‘My Health, My Care, My Home – healthcare framework for adults living in care homes’. The framework was developed by Scottish Government working with care providers and representative bodies, health and social care practitioners, Health and Social Care Partnerships, policymakers and families and friends.

One of the joys of general practice is seeing the same patients over time and getting to know them and their families. I worked in the same small practice for over twenty years and saw people go from active sixty-somethings, slowing down in their seventies, and then becoming frail in their eighties.

Across the UK, our National Health Service is facing huge challenges. There are unprecedented delays for ambulances and waits in emergency departments.

Falls Prevention Awareness week is a national health campaign to raise awareness of falls health and injury prevention. Across the UK there will be an abundance of seminars, conferences and many discussions will be had.

With the national agenda to create virtual wards has come an increasing demand to develop Hospital at Home (hospital@home, H@H) services. Guys and St Thomas’ H@H, operational since 2014, “takes the ward to the patient’s home”.

This is the ninth blog in the BGS’s ‘Timely Discharge’ series. We aim to raise awareness of the detrimental effects on older people of being stuck in hospital when they are 'medically fit for discharge'. Our blog series explores the causes of delayed discharges, the knock-on effects to the wider health and social care system, and what needs to change.

This is the eighth blog in the BGS’s ‘Timely Discharge’ series. We aim to raise awareness of the detrimental effects on older people of being stuck in hospital when they are 'medically fit for discharge'. Our blog series explores the causes of delayed discharges, the knock-on effects to the wider health and social care system, and what needs to change.

This is the seventh blog in the BGS’s ‘Timely Discharge’ series. We aim to raise awareness of the detrimental effects on older people of being stuck in hospital when they are 'medically fit for discharge'. Our blog series explores the causes of delayed discharges, the knock-on effects to the wider health and social care system, and what needs to change.

This year’s theme for the International Day of Older Persons is digital equity for all ages. This is timely given the acceleration of the use of digital communications and services during the pandemic and the risks that some people, particularly older people, could be left behind.

Those of us working a lot with care homes have been involved in implementing the Enhanced Health in Care Homes Directed Enhanced Service (EHCH DES) that came into effect last year.

With over 69 million reported cases of COVID-19 worldwide, we have all experienced rapid and dramatic changes to our healthcare services over the last 12 months. Older people have been disproportionately affected by a greater severity of disease and mortality, detrimental psychological, cognitive and physical outcomes from necessary social distancing, as well as age discrimination. 

When I commenced my Clinical Lead role at the Royal British Legion in January of this year, one of the first challenges presented to me by my team was to sample a ‘puréed meal’ in one of our care homes.

I have been a nurse since 1986, mainly working in end of life or dementia care. I have had a variety of roles in the hospital, care home, community and hospice settings. I have been a family carer (alongside my brother and sister) since 2002.

Chaired by BGS Past President Dr Eileen Burns, the five nation care home meeting gave participants an opportunity to share their experiences of managing COVID in care home settings and to compare what worked well and what didn’t.

On the 20th March the usual discussion, laughter, sounds of people coming and going, and noises of normal life fell eerily silent. We had gone into a national state of ‘lock down’. I had always avoided using the phrase if we had needed to close our care home to visitors previously, but now it actually felt appropriate.  We were locked down and locked in.

There has been a significant focus on UK care homes following COVID-19. Care homes have had to quickly adapt their working practices, to keep their residents and staff safe. Approximately 400,000 older people are currently living in UK care homes.

Lister House Care Home nestles against the beautiful North Yorkshire landscape, just on the outskirts of the historic small city of Ripon.

Earlier this year health and social care organisations across Newcastle upon Tyne (Collaborative Newcastle) were focused on how to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In this blog I write as a care home nurse with hindsight, reliving my shift in mid-March, when I could hear the ‘hooves of the apocalyptic horses’ approaching as coronavirus took hold. I have not worked there since, as I have instead been caring for my husband who is shielding. 

Earlier this week I wrote about ongoing and sometimes over-polarised debates within British geriatric medicine, BGS membership, and government policy around community versus acute hospital care for older people with frailty who require skilled assessment and treatment.