New research by Which? has found that almost half of people who had
arranged care for themselves or a loved one said there weren’t any places in at
least one of the local care homes they considered.
The Which? survey asked people who had arranged care for themselves
or a loved one in the past 12 months to share their experiences of
the care sector and highlights a worrying trend of people not being
able to find suitable local care provision.
The research found that a lack of good local places means many people
are staying in, or moving loved ones into, care homes they aren’t
satisfied with, with almost one in five people (17%) saying they settled for
a care home they had reservations about.
A similar number (16%) ended up opting for a home away from friends and
family.
Commenting on the Which? research, Alzheimer’s Society Senior Policy
Officer Dominic Carter said:
'These findings echo what we hear every day through our helpline – time
and again we are called by families of people with dementia who’ve been refused
places at care homes because their needs are ‘too complex’.
'Even worse, we hear of people with dementia in care homes handed
four-week eviction notices – one woman told us her husband was shown the door
after seven weeks at a care home because he was viewed as 'challenging and the
manager did not have enough staff available to provide the one-to-one support
he needed’.
'While it could be easy to scapegoat care homes, we know they are
finding themselves between a rock and a hard place. They can’t sustain their
businesses if local authorities don’t have big enough budgets to cover the care
home’s costs. The only way to give people with dementia the care, security and
reassurance they deserve is for the Government to inject more money into social
care.'
SOURCE: Alzheimers Society
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