Yet again the NHS hits the headlines and the issue with people having to remain in hospital due to lack of services available to allow them to go home.
Elderly person waiting for hospital discharge
This BBC article highlights the need for the type of services Clarity can provide whether looking for care homes or care at home we can help. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-33905737
We recently helped a Client in Southampton who was delayed in hospital for 11 weeks before Clarity became involved. We met with our Client, who had Alzheimer’s together with her family to understand her requirements. We liaised with the hospital staff and found a suitable Dementia registered care home within a week of us being involved. We then oversaw her discharge from hospital all the time supporting her and her family at a difficult time.
The reason – we had the time to give to this elderly lady and got to understand the complexities of her care needs. We didn’t see her as “difficult” or “challenging” we looked at the underlying reasons for some of her behaviour that often required 4 carers at once. The home we found listened, were experts in their field and provided our Client with the care she needs in a stable environment.
The difficulty is getting the NHS and Local Authorities to recognize the value of supporting independent companies that offer a quality service finding appropriate care homes and care agencies and a whole lot more. We purposely don’t work with high case loads to allow us the time to focus on our Clients. We can take on those complex cases where families are struggling and don’t know where to start. We often work alongside social workers and discharge teams. Each time we do this, the hospital discharge teams are so appreciative of the service offered and can’t understand why we aren’t known within the hospitals. When we’ve tried, the answer we often get is “you’re a private company, so we can’t promote you”
It’s not about promoting us, it’s about letting people know they have options when finding care: Voluntary groups and charities offer great services, local authorities do what they can but have such high case loads and the pressure they are under is enormous, but there are also private companies such as Clarity Care Consulting – we can all work side by side and help with some of those delays.
We would like the NHS and Local Authorities to support independent services to help offer patients and their families choice.
