One area of healthcare provision which is often overlooked is that of homecare, otherwise known as domicillary care.
Basically, the job of the NHS is to provide us with healthcare, or more specifically, 'nursing care' and therefore any needs we have which are categorised as healthcare and/or nursing care must be funded by the NHS.
Furthermore, because it is no longer possible for the NHS and Social Services to jointly fund a care package the distinction between 'health needs' and 'social needs' is becoming more and more important as it can influence completely who funds a care package and therefore how it is delivered.
For those of us who get, or are hoping to get, Direct Payments this is seriously worrying because if even one aspect of our needs can be interpreted as a health need, then we may well have to rely on agency support funded through NHS Continuing Healthcare, which is far inferior.
I don't disagree with the notion that the NHS should pay for our health needs, but I think its vital we think carefully about what actually constitutes a 'health need'.
The official line is the NHS should be responsible for any care which needs to be carried out by registered nurse, which makes perfect sense right?
However, at the moment this includes things like the use of medical equipment such as (I believe) nebulisers and Bipap machines (bit like a ventilator) which sounds sensible but actually isn't because patients who are able to do so are expected to use these by themselves, so why can't an ordinary personal assistant do the same?
You see my argument is that whilst severely disabled people like myself do often have an array of 'health needs', most of these could be managed effectively by any responsible personal assistant, therefore itis unnecessary, and a waste of money, to employ a registered nurse for all our care. Especially considering that for most of us, our health needs are far outweighed by our 'social needs' like eating and peeing, which are traditionaly the responsibility of Social Services.
As I mention in the video, I'm very keen to hear your views on this, so please comment below with your ideas.
Bye for now,
George Baker
