Health & wellbeing

Call for better care and support for people with long term conditions and depression

A new report from a coalition of leading charities working on behalf of people with long term conditions is calling for better care and support for people with long term conditions and depression.

People with long term conditions are twice or three times more likely to experience depression and estimates suggest that 20% of people with long term conditions have depression. In those with long term conditions, depression can exacerbate illnesses and inhibit rehabilitation and recovery, increasing the costs to the NHS.

It is estimated that in a range of long term conditions depression can increase healthcare costs by 33% to 169%. Depression can also increase the risk of death for some people with long term conditions, such as in heart disease and cancer.

The report, entitled 'Twice as likely: putting long term conditions and depression on the agenda', makes a number of key recommendations for national and local action. 

Living well with dementia - Design Council to launch new projects

The Design Council in partnership with the Department of Health has funded and supported the development of five innovative new solutions that can improve the quality of life for people living with dementia, and aid the development of dementia friendly communities. The prototypes of these five designs will be launched at a Design Council event on Thursday 26 April.

To learn more about this exciting project and find out how you can visit the design exhibition go to the Design Council's project website.

Dementia and end of life care: Implications for people with sensory loss

Dementia and serious sensory loss are often triggers for admission to a care home, and as more people are surviving into older age, the incidence of dual sensory loss is growing.

Carers and staff supporting people with dual sensory loss combined with dementia need to be confident they can meet these complex needs, and end of life care represents one of their major challenges. Good environmental design can help support best practice in this area.

These are some of the issues that were discussed at a joint event between Pocklington, the Social Care Institute for Excellence and Arup. Read more about their conclusions in the report. 

Latest Dementia Advocacy Network publication

'Taking their side: fighting their corner' is a compilation of 16 stories demonstrating the difference independent advocacy makes to the lives of people with dementia.

Written from the perspective of advocates, the stories reveal the skills, knowledge and understanding advocates use. They show the impact advocacy has not only on those being supported but also the wider impact on services and service providers, against the backdrop of legislation, human rights and the national dementia strategy.

This is available on  their website or a hard copy can be ordered. 

Daily physical activity may help reduce Alzheimer’s risk

A new study, which measured the activity of older people over a four year period, has shown that daily physical activity such as cooking, cleaning and playing cards could help to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s.

The study is published in 18 April in the journal Neurology. Read more on the Alzheimer's Research UK webpages. 

Combating loneliness: A guide for local authorities

The Campaign to End Loneliness, in association with the Local Government Association’s Ageing Well programme, has recently launched this guide.

It covers interventions to tackle loneliness among older people at the strategic, neighbourhood and individual levels; and includes a range of examples of each.

Charities call for NHS Commissioning Boards to listen to, and deliver, the needs of patients

The Richmond Group, a coalition of ten leading health and social care charities including Age UK, issued a call this week for the Government to instruct the new NHS Commissioning Board to have five key priorities for action and to ensure patients are central to the design and delivery of care in the new NHS.

The call was made in the Group's second report, 'From Vision to Action', which sets out what exactly needs to change to put patients at the heart of the NHS. Delivering these priorities will ensure patients are at the centre of decisions about their future care.

For example, the report calls for doctors to develop the skills to support patients being actively involved in decisions about their care and for making it mandatory for medical students to learn these skills.

Improving nutrition - improving care final report published

 This report celebrates the work of Healthcare Improvement Scotland's Improving Nutritional Care Programme, from June 2010-March 2012, and sets out the next steps for ensuring integration and alignment of nutritional care work. 

The Improving Nutritional Care Programme builds on the work of the Food, Fluid and Nutritional Care in Hospital Standards and National Overviews and the subsequent Integrated Programme for Improving Nutritional Care (2007-2009).

The impact of patient age on clinical decision-making in oncology

 This report, published by the Department of Health, sets out the results of a study investigating the extent to which age is a factor in oncology treatment decisions. The result suggests that clinicians may over rely on chronological age as a proxy for other factors which are often but not necessarily associated with age, for example, comorbidities and frailty.

New toolkit aims to improve care for frail older people

The third in the series of acute care toolkits from the Royal College of Physicians aims to improve the care of the frail older patient.

Older people make up 60-70% of hospital inpatients, and most are admitted through an Acute Medical Unit (AMU), making this a key area in which care for older people can be influenced. It can be difficult for doctors to assess frail older patients as they can often arrive at hospital with multiple symptoms or conditions which can make it difficult to deduce the true cause of the admission.

The new 6-page toolkit, produced in collaboration with the British Geriatrics Society, recommends procedures for both initial assessment on admission and later Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA). Read more and download the toolkit on the RCP website.

Early implementers sought to test long term conditions year of care funding model

Early implementers  are being invited by the Department of Health to apply to test a potential new way of funding long term conditions care.

The LTC year of care funding model will be tested by six early implementer sites and prescribes a set approach for the purpose of national evaluation. The model is described in Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention long term conditions which is published along side an application form and supporting guidance for those interested in becoming early implementers.

The deadline for applications is Friday 25 May 2012.

NHS performance framework - implementation guidance available

 This guidance sets out the Department's approach to identifying underperforming NHS organisations and stipulates when intervention should occur in such organisations.

This implementation guidance for 2012/13 is designed to support the application of the framework.

Specifically the NHS Performance Framework - implementation guidance informs NHS organisations of the criteria against which their performance will be assessed - underpinned by the NHS Operating Framework and input from regulators, as well as the frequency of assessment and escalation measures