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Fines For Social Services Is A Recipe For Chaos - Burstow
November 13, 2002 1:02 AM
Paul Burstow MP, Liberal Democrat Spokesman on Older People, commenting on the Queen Speech announcement that Ministers are intending to charge social services departments up to £120 per day for each an older person experiencing delayed discharge, said:-
"The Government's plan will penalise social service departments for decades of under-investment. Already, minister's obsession with reducing delayed discharge is leading to an increase in emergency readmissions, with elderly people forced out of hospital before they are well enough to go home, only to return within days as emergencies cases.
"Simply lifting the idea of penalties from Sweden, without looking at all of the reforms introduced in the Swedish health system, is a recipe for chaos in the English care system. Until Ministers wake up to the scale of the crisis in both the home care and care home sectors, many elderly people will be left the victims of a game of pass the parcel between hard pressed doctors and cash strapped social services."
ENDS
Notes to editors
· Between April 2001 and March 2002, 122,881 people over the age of 75 were readmitted as an emergency within 28 days of being discharged. This compares to 107,594 between April 1999 and March 2000, an overall increase of 14%.
· There was a 5% increase in the number of people readmitted as an emergency within 28 days of being discharged over the period 2001/2002 despite the document produced by the DoH 'Implementation Programme for the NHS Plan' which states: -
"Nationally, to ensure that average growth (between 2000/01 and 2001/02) in the per capita rate of emergency admissions for people aged 75 and over is less than 2 per cent, and that the rate of emergency readmissions within 28 days of discharge does not increase."
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