Today Age UK have released their research identifying 2 million people have an unmet need for social care. The research comes a day after I sit and listen to my partner off-loading after a full-on day supporting people in Salford.
They get a call out to a couple, as usual they don’t have all of the details until they access via the key safe. Husband and wife are in hospital beds in the lounge. The husband has called them because his wife stopped talking to him the night before. The room is incredibly cold.
They quickly understand that the husband has dementia, and the wife is end of life. The husband is worried that his wife has stopped talking, she has the telltale signs of a life that is coming to an end. They check that she is comfortable, she isn’t – she is cold and damp, her head resting on a pillow without a case, covered by a duvet without a cover.
The husband is worried for his wife, he tells them that the carers have told him that he is not allowed to call his son. The team help him to make the call. The boiler has broken, the couple have no heating or hot water. The District Nurse arrives, she confirms the assessment made by my partner.
The District Nurse lodges a safeguarding for the couple.
What’s gone wrong? Why have family members not fought for better care? Why have they not sorted the boiler? We all hope for a dignified, peaceful and comfortable end to our lives. This is a million miles away from this lady lying in a cold and damp hospital bed in cold room with only her husband imprisoned in his own hospital bed to care for her.
Is this really the best care we can offer this couple? Flying visits from a strained domiciliary care company! What’s going to happen when she dies, maybe she has died already in a room with her husband trapped in his hospital bed because he ‘hasn’t got any muscles in his legs’. How will he cope living in a room in a hospital bed without his wife to talk to him? Will his dementia lock him into a perpetual circle of loss for his wife, his other half? Care workers rushing in and sharing the painful news with him every morning or on every visit.
This was just one visit they made yesterday, this distressing example of people not receiving the care that they need. This couple are not living well at home.
Age UK’s ‘report finds that primary (GP) and community health services, and social care, are either simply inadequate in terms of availability or are insufficiently joined up and planned’. The man living with dementia in a hospital bed in his lounge worried that his wife has stopped talking to him clearly and heartbreakingly illustrates the failings of the system right now.
Shame on us all. It has to change!
To read the full report – 2 million older people now have some unmet need for social care (ageuk.org.uk)