The regional manager of nine nursing homes in Northern Ireland has voiced her frustration with the Department of Health over what she sees as a lack of progress towards reforming the country’s social care system. Linda Graham has called for more consistency and joined-up thinking in the system, arguing that nursing homes should be the place where residents are nursed, not emergency departments.
Ms Graham has argued that the Northern Ireland system of integrated health and social care was not working effectively, with minimal evidence of collaboration between hospital and community staff. She said people with experience in the sector had put forward proposals to the Department of Health, but were not seeing results.
The Times highlighted recently that difficulties in the social care system in Northern Ireland had been compounded by long waiting times at emergency departments, with some patients unable to leave hospital because there was no care package in place for them. Michael Stevenson, who is temporarily living in a nursing home, complained that he would have to remain there until appropriate support was organised to enable him to return to his own home.$
Betty McKenzie, aged 88, has praised an initiative by the South Eastern Health Trust to provide hospital care in patients’ homes. The service has seen the setting up of a multi-disciplinary team to administer care, including two daily nurse visits from a consultant geriatrician and a physiotherapist. Ms McKenzie, who has a pacemaker and is recovering from a broken femur, said the service was “brilliant” and kept her out of a hospital which was short-staffed.
Dr Amanda Crawford, one of the consultants in the South Eastern Health Trust service, said hospital-based care was more expensive than care in people’s own homes. The Northern Ireland Department of Health said it was committed to systemic reform of the care system over the next three years
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