Managing Director of National Homecare Network Calls on Government to Revise Care Funding Strategy

Right at Home managing director Ken Deary, said: “Government cuts have resulted in care funding falling to levels that are now dangerously low, particularly for people with Alzheimer’s and other kinds of dementia. As a result, council funded home care visits are typically short in duration and purely task based.”

“Charities such as Age UK and the Alzheimer’s Society will tell you that longer duration person-centred home care can have a huge impact in helping to stabilise people’s conditions and improve their quality of life.

“But it is now all but impossible to deliver those standards of service using local authority funding alone. This means the majority of people must either top up their budgets, as they do with Right at Home and other quality care providers, or put up with standards of care that do not meet their needs and too often leave them often treated without the dignity and respect they are entitled to; and at worst at serious risk.

“This problem is only going to intensify as the ageing population grows and dementia cases increase. The Government has got to revise its care funding strategy and give this the attention it urgently needs in order to support vulnerable adults with longer unrushed visit times that provide quality dignified care.”