Hutton Collins investee company Healthcare at Home, the UK's largest provider of complex care in the home environment, has sponsored the study and publication of a report written by a panel of England's leading experts in dementia care. The report calls for a new approach to supporting dementia patients and their carers.
The group found that current service provision for dementia is failing to support patients and carers in many key aspects of day-to-day life. As a result, many of these patients end up in an inappropriate care setting. Together, the group sets out a new approach to dementia care, outlining practical steps that will improve patient and carer experience at a lower cost to the NHS and local government. Specifically, the report:
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Identifies where patients and carers are currently being let down within today's system of care - areas of unmet need include stimulation, respite care and access to round-the-clock clinical care.
- Lists the care settings in which these needs are at most risk of going unmet (i.e. residential homes, state-funded care etc).
- Defines and maps a new model of care that will result in better, more efficient care, and reduce hospital admissions.
- Concludes that a single point of access to service and support, available 24/7 would greatly improve care and reduce hospital admissions.
- Finds that moving patients onto a clearly mapped home-based care pathway could save over £127 million a year for the NHS in avoidable hospital admissions.
- Calls upon the Department of Health to identify the true costs of dementia by developing a usable tariff or capitated payment method, which identifies the actual cost of dementia care in today's system.
Currently, 25% of all patients admitted to hospital have a diagnosis of dementia, and it is widely accepted that many hospital admissions could be prevented if patients and their carers were better supported at home. The report finds that the cost of caring for dementia patients can be reduced by up to a quarter if the recommendations for a home-based model of care were implemented.
Ruth Poole, Group Clinical Director of Healthcare at Home comments: "When it comes to treating dementia, today's system is not fit for purpose. Patients and carers are left to navigate their way through a complex and often baffling health and social care system. This can lead to the all-too-familiar outcome of patients ending up in inappropriate care settings, because anything else seemed too complicated, the options available did not match their needs, or they were scared and confused and did not know where else to go. Put simply, we as a health and social care system need to get our act together."
The full report can be downloaded at http://www.hah.co.uk/media-centre