Crisis in care at home 'leads to rising hospital admissions among elderly' – Alzheimer’s Society comments
Estimates by Age UK have found that an increasing number of older people are being admitted to hospital for conditions which should have been dealt with at home due to failures in the care for people in the community.
The estimates show that older people have seen the largest increases in admission rates with percentage changes of over 100% for each of the different age brackets aged 65 and older in the 14 years since records started.
Sally Copley, Director of Policy, Campaigns and Partnerships at Alzheimer’s Society, says: “With the majority of those receiving adult homecare and in care homes living with dementia, there is no question that the social care crisis is a dementia crisis.
“It’s beyond heartbreaking that people with dementia are ending up in hospital as a result of poor care in the community. In fact, there were over 50,000 avoidable emergency admissions for people with dementia last year. This needless care gap in the system is leading to the human cost of people with dementia being pulled from pillar to post in search of adequate care, disrupting their home life and forcing them to struggle in crowded hospital wards.
“One million people will be living with dementia by 2021. Successive governments have shirked the issue of our threadbare social care system, but the Green Paper is a chance for our current Government to outline measures to deliver high quality social care to everyone with dementia who needs it, without spending everything they have to receive it.”
