Hugo de Savary's – living with learning disabilities.

Archive for the ‘Care in the News’ Category

Now a decade into the 21^st Century and technological developments have raced ahead, helping to remove some of the barriers and challenges to delivering care. Most families with children have used the humble baby monitor but dig deeper and there is a whole host of technological solutions that can change the lives of both carers and vulnerable individuals which can provide continuous, automatic and remote monitoring over time such as Telecare, which helps manage the risks associated with independent living.

Telecare it has to be said, can provide some magical life changing solutions to debilitating problems that in the past would have been extremely difficult to overcome and costly to manage. Due to these advantages, Telecare has become prevalent in many aspects of healthcare. Within the eldercare sector, it is used to allow the elderly who start to display vulnerabilities to stay longer in their own homes. Within Learning Disabilities it is widely used within Supported Living and in an organisation like HFHC that delivers specialist care, it also has its place especially in our mews properties setup for those who wish to sample greater independence within a structured environment.

With serious spending cuts taking place and more on the horizon, Telecare is seen as a major solution due to the associated cost benefits – but just like the arguments for CCTV as a substitute for fewer policemen on the streets, the camera may record the criminal act being committed, but there are no assurances that it brings the criminal act to an end.

Unfortunately the same must apply to Telecare, so that the vulnerable aren’t put at risk due to an overreliance on these monitoring solutions. It must be used to support the delivery of care, but in no way must it be seen as a viable substitute to people performing the care function.

Many people have asked if I saw the Gerry Robinson program on BBC2 in the run up to Christmas, where he reported on care homes offering dementia care to the elderly. I did, and can attest to this 2 part series being both insightful and horrifying. Even if you have no direct link to someone with dementia, as in my case, you couldn’t help but be repulsed by the language used by staff and management – some referring to their work as ‘granny farming’. The lack of dignity being offered to residents in the majority of the homes shown was both atrocious and depressing. Being locked in regardless of the weather, staring aimlessly at a wall or TV with a pathetic amount of stimulation at hand can only be wrong. Worse, when the lucid moments occurred for some residents and they appeared to be genuinely scared and confused about their whereabouts, help and support was not forthcoming compounding the individuals’ distress – this has to be my idea of hell that could turn into reality if this doesn’t change, as like everyone I have a 5% chance of developing dementia post 65.

The homes shown were owned by both big groups as well as the smaller operators. When some of the senior management/owners were interviewed, you had the distasteful feeling that in the majority of cases, the residents were seen as a pure commodity and the profits made were being derived as a consequence of the misfortune of others, suggesting that some areas of the sector are operating in an immoral manner, on par to that of trading illicit drugs or arms – strong but possibly true.

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Whatever your views on US politics, whether Republican or Democrat – The Sunday Times, one of my favourite publications is serialising Sarah Palin’s book, An American Life. Interestingly this week’s serialisation focuses on the pregnancy of her 4th child.

As a woman of 43, the risks of having a baby with Down’s syndrome were obviously elevated and she was initially told it was a 1 in 80 chance. After her 12 week scan this became reduced to 1 in 12 and following an amniocentesis, it was confirmed that her baby had Downs – despite this news she went on to have Trigg.

How any of us if faced with this news and those same life changing choices would react, is a difficult one to consider but on the non political front Palin has certainly earned my admiration.