Health Solutions

Around 10,500 or so care homes in the UK care for around 400,000 older people, of whom some 20 per cent are over the age of 85.  Future demand for care homes is expected to rise by around 150 per cent over the next 50 years.

Furthermore, in Scotland, if age specific rates of care home provision remain the same as now, the requirement for placements is expected to increase by 72 per cent by 2028, from 33,000 to over 57,000.

Over the past decade the average life expectancy of an older person entering a care home has changed dramatically and is now between one and two years. A high percentage of residents are also in their last year of life and likely to be in need of compassionate end of life care. Regardless of whether they are in the last year of life, most residents have quite complex health care needs, both physical and mental; with high prevalence of late stage neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, dementia, and severe stroke. Many residents will also suffer from depression and loneliness.  As a result, and in the absence of effective healthcare, care home residents will have higher rates of both necessary and avoidable hospital admissions.

Providing good quality health care for older people living in care homes raises a number of significant challenges for the NHS and care home providers. While the social care model is central to residents’ needs, research shows that the health services currently on offer are failing to meet their complex care needs.  Finding a cost-effective way of delivering such services is clearly an imperative, given the increasing costs of caring for the elderly.  While healthcare for residents, in theory, remains free at the point of need; accessing good quality care seems increasingly difficult.

Care home staff rarely have the skills or training to handle the complex healthcare requirements that many residents increasingly suffer from and require support from specialist health care staff. This