A survey has found that more than half of GPs don’t fully understand non-residential care services and 67 per cent said they receive little or no support from local councils.
The research by the local government consultancy, impower, revealed GPs inflate demand for residential care by at least 60,000 older people every year because they are not familiar with the alternatives.
The Home Truths study based on interviews with older people, social care professionals, GPs and directors of adult social care found 82 per cent of GPs believe that a large proportion of older people could avoid or delay entry into residential care.
Jeremy Cooper the director at impower said the study shows that GPs, social workers and local authorities are “locked in a dysfunctional relationship” with lack of understanding between them generating “unnecessary demand for residential care.”
He said: “With financial pressures increasing we need a new approach to health and social care integration now.”
Richard Parry the corporate director of adults and local services at Cumbria County Council, added: “We need to ‘up our game’ when it comes to delaying entry into residential care and challenge widely held perceptions that residential care is the only option.”
impower’s report argues that current efforts to integrate health and social care should be re-focused on the individual relationships between the people who provide these services, which hold the key to reducing demand.
Jeremy Cooper, said: “Our research identifies a much bigger potential opportunity to tackle the social care funding crisis – by deflating demand. The £600m opportunity to reduce residential care bills we have identified is just the tip of the iceberg.
“If local authorities focused on integrating people and culture, rather than just structures and services, they could save billions of pounds in provision of more appropriate, targeted health and social care for older people.”
For more information http://www.impower.co.uk/
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