Social care nurses are limiting their home visits to ‘15 minutes maximum’, due to high workloads, says Kate Lee, Chief Executive of Alzheimer’s Society.
In an interview with the BBC, Ms. Lee spoke of nurses being so overworked to the point they can only have 15 minute visits with those who have dementia.
‘The size and the scale of the problem facing social care is absolutely immense and people with dementia across the UK are being let down’ said Ms. Lee.
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There are currently 165,000 vacancies in social care which is causing over 50% of people with dementia to reach breaking point because of not receiving the help they need.
Sue Boran, Director of Nursing Programmes at the Queen’s Nursing Institute (QNI) responded saying ‘There are very legitimate concerns about the capacity of the workforce, in community nursing and social care’
‘The focus must be on an adequately trained and knowledgeable workforce that can support and care for people across both health and social’.
The Department of Health and Social Care has set out a 10-year vision for reforming adult social care that will include a £5.4 billion investment over three years. £500 million will be invested ‘to bolster the social care workforce’ a spokesperson said.
However, Kate Lee warned the Government that ‘the proposed funding to fix this crisis won’t scratch the surface of what’s needed’.
Director of Policy at Carers UK Emily Holzhausen expressed her concern saying that ‘the lack of social care support means that 600 people in the UK every day make the difficult decision to leave the workforce to provide unpaid care’.
‘Carers need a funded social care system to be able to work and look after their own health. The Government must invest in a workforce plan for social care and provide proper investment in the system’.