NHS money needed to avert home care crunch

NHS money needs to be invested in developing more preventive
services for older people, Ian Philp has warned.

The older people’s tsar said it would be a challenge for social
services departments to avoid raising eligibility criteria for
domiciliary care as a result of the increasing number of people
being cared for in their own homes.

Funding from the health service would enable local authorities to
invest in what he called “anticipatory care”, which would benefit
the NHS by reducing the number of people needing to be hospitalised
when problems became severe.

Philp also warned professionals working in health and social care
that they would have to be more open about sharing client
information in the future.

Philp said one of the biggest challenges over the next few years
was to ensure that “vested interests” did not get in the way of
service developments.

He singled out doctors for particular criticism for taking what he
called a “professional protectionist” approach to passing on
details of their patients.

“Everyone is protective, but we are breaking that down. I would
like everyone to sign up to the principle that it is the person’s
information and records so that eventually all excuses start to
disappear.”