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Elderly care standards at risk due to lack of reforms

There will be “serious consequences for standards” to the quality of life of up to 1.2 million elderly people in care according to a report by the Commons health committee.

"Opportunities to provide necessary help are not taken and the condition of individual patients deteriorates in many cases where this did not need to happen," the report states.

At present it is common for doctors and social services departments to duplicate each other’s work, carrying out multiple assessments on the same patients without pooling their efforts.

Stephen Dorrell, Conservative chairman of the committee, said: "It is impossible to deliver either high quality or efficient services when the patient is passed like a parcel from one part of the system to another, without any serious attempt to look at their needs in the round.

The Government has committed to providing an additional £20 billion a year for social care by 2015, but the MPs say this is "not sufficient to maintain adequate levels of service quality and efficiency".

Find out more about care for elderly people here.

Source: Telegraph website (link opens in new window).

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