Care news

• DWP waives £1,300 penalty for unpaid carer threatened with fraud prosecution

  12-09-2024 18:51 via theguardian.com
  
  Clemency Jacques is one of 134,500 people repaying £251m in carer’s allowance overpaymentsAn unpaid carer threatened with prosecution for fraud after inadvertently breaching benefit rules has had a £1,300 penalty waived by officials after her case appeared in the Guardian.Clemency Jacques, who cares for her disabled son and elderly mother, said she was given the choice of paying the charge or risking police arrest and a court appearance after running up a £2,600 carer&rsq
  
  Read more

• UK politics: No more money for NHS without reform, says Starmer as he outlines vision for health service – as it happened

  12-09-2024 18:48 via theguardian.com
  
  The prime minister blamed the Tories for ‘breaking’ the NHS and said reform of the service was needed Starmer sets out some of the most negative findings in the report.Take the waiting times in A&A - more than 100,000 infants waited more than six hours last year.And nearly a tenth of all patients are now waiting for 12 hours or more.Even Lord Darzi, with all his years of experience, is shocked by what he discovered. It is unforgivable, and people have every right to be angry. Con
  
  Read more

• No more money for NHS without reform, says Starmer as he outlines vision for health service – UK politics live

  12-09-2024 14:43 via theguardian.com
  The prime minister blamed the Tories for ‘breaking’ the NHS and said reform of the service was needed Starmer sets out some of the most negative findings in the report.Take the waiting times in A&A - more than 100,000 infants waited more than six hours last year.And nearly a tenth of all patients are now waiting for 12 hours or more.Even Lord Darzi, with all his years of experience, is shocked by what he discovered. It is unforgivable, and people have every right to be angry. Con
  
  Read more

• Keir Starmer vows to face down ‘loud opposition’ to fix NHS

  12-09-2024 13:21 via theguardian.com
  
  Prime minister promises 10-year plan after Darzi report concludes health service in a ‘critical condition’UK politics live – latest updatesKeir Starmer has vowed to be bold and face down “loud opposition” to his planned public health measures and NHS reforms after a major inquiry found the health service was “in critical condition”.The prime minister said he was prepared to take “controversial” action to fix the NHS and public health in Engla
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• More than a million unpaid UK carers living in poverty, research finds

  12-09-2024 09:38 via theguardian.com
  Carers UK estimates 600 people a day quit jobs to care for loved ones and calls for review of benefits systemMore than a million unpaid carers in the UK who look after disabled, frail or ill relatives are living in poverty, with one in 10 experiencing such extreme hardship they struggle to afford to eat regularly or heat their homes, new research shows.Campaigners said carers – routinely lauded by politicians as unsung heroes whose sacrifices help prop up the NHS – were paying the pr
  
  Read more

• Long NHS delays in England leading to thousands of unnecessary deaths, inquiry finds

  11-09-2024 23:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Detailed analysis warns Keir Starmer it will take longer than five years to get waiting times back on trackLong delays for hospital, GP and mental health services are leading to thousands of unnecessary deaths and have ruptured “the social contract between the NHS and the people”, an inquiry has concluded.The findings of the study by Lord Ara Darzi, commissioned by Labour when it came to power, will be cited by the prime minister, Keir Starmer, who will on Thursday warn that the NHS
  
  Read more

• Woman, 86, told she no longer has to repay £13,000 in benefits in DWP U-turn

  04-09-2024 17:42 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: Case of Sia Kasparis, who has dementia, had been highlighted in Guardian investigation into unpaid careAn 86-year-old woman with advanced dementia has been told by the government she no longer has to repay a £13,000 benefit debt after her case was highlighted by the Guardian.Sia Kasparis, who is partially blind and has been bed-bound for two years, was ordered to repay the huge sum after officials said she had failed to notify them her son had taken up caring duties. Continue re
  
  Read more

• Councils in England draining reserves to stay afloat, leaders say

  04-09-2024 01:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Survey of 24 city authorities finds two in five plan to sell off assets and reduce servicesLocal authority leaders say they are having to drain their financial reserves to keep services afloat and avoid effective bankruptcy.A survey of the mid-tier group of English city councils, which includes Southampton, Hull, Sunderland and Norwich, found that many that had previously avoided financial difficulties during periods of austerity were close to running out of funds. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Why social workers had to investigate Kirstie Allsopp case | Letter

  02-09-2024 17:21 via theguardian.com
  Julia Ross from the British Association of Social Workers says if a referral is made it must be acted on– it is the lawWhat the media coverage on the Kirstie Allsopp story misses is how social work actually works (Kirstie Allsopp reported to social services for allowing son, 15, to travel abroad, 25 August). If a referral is made, it must be acted on when certain criteria are met – it is simply the law. This approach doesn’t discriminate between class or status – it
  
  Read more

• Unless Labour wakes up on social care, tragedies will happen | Martin Green, Vic Rayner, Jane Townson and Suhail Mirza

  31-08-2024 19:04 via theguardian.com
  
  The new government is showing every sign that it intends to ignore the crisis in social care. It has to change course• Social care chiefs sound alarm at Labour’s ‘deafening silence’ on sectorSummertime, 160 years ago. Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to then secretary of war Edwin Stanton, wrote: “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” Those words could be applied to a plethora of current, global challenges – climate change, in
  
  Read more

• Social care chiefs sound alarm at Labour’s ‘deafening silence’ on sector

  31-08-2024 19:03 via theguardian.com
  
  Labour accused of dropping pledges after it abandons cap on costs and prepares to scrap care worker training fund• Unless Labour wakes up on social care, tragedies will happenLabour has discarded its social care commitments and seems set to repeat the failure of previous governments to tackle the care crisis, the sector’s leaders have warned.Announcements by Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, that she would not cap costs for older people’s care and Stephen Kinnock, the care minister
  
  Read more

• Interfering do-gooders, social services and Interrail adventures | Letters

  30-08-2024 18:37 via theguardian.com
  Matt Atkinson on having to persuade his local authority to investigate a young traveller, and Joan Lewis on cross-Europe travelI am one of those interfering do-gooders who have referred instances of children travelling alone across Europe to social services. I’m surprised that they were so quick to investigate Kirstie Allsopp (Kirstie Allsopp reported to social services for allowing son, 15, to travel abroad, Report, 25 August), considering the difficulty I had persuading my local authorit
  
  Read more

• Alarm at failure to inspect 60% of England homecare providers in four years or longer

  30-08-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Care leaders warn of serious safety risk as research reveals some providers have never been inspectedCare leaders have warned of a serious safety risk as research revealed 60% of homecare providers had not been inspected for at least four years, or ever.As the government prepares to receive a report on profound failings at its Care Quality Commission (CQC) that triggered the chief executive’s removal this summer and a public apology, the Homecare Association warned 37% of providers of domi
  
  Read more

• Love, warmth and hard work: the heart of the UK care system – photo essay

  26-08-2024 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The photographer Halena Hucker has spent the last year interviewing care workers and photographing behind the scenes of the care sector in a project titled In Love and Care. She documents the multifaceted nature of care work and highlights humanity amid the care system’s economic and political uncertainties, emphasising how the dedication of carers sustains the systemIn Love and Care came from a personal place in my heart. Many of my family members work in care, with aunties and cousins wo
  
  Read more

• More than 14,000 NHS beds in use by patients ready to be discharged

  26-08-2024 01:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Care homes and homecare providers wait weeks for people to be brought from hospital, report revealsMore than 14,000 NHS hospital beds are being occupied every day by patients who are well enough to be discharged, figures show, as experts urged ministers tackle the crisis.The data emerged as a damning report revealed that almost a fifth of care providers were waiting weeks for people to be transferred into their care. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• How do you best choose an Australian aged care facility and what do the star ratings mean?

  24-08-2024 22:00 via theguardian.com
  Experts have questioned why so few homes are rated substandard, given the commission found one in three residents experience neglect, abuse or poor careFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastThe star rating system of aged care homes was introduced in December 2022 to help older people and their families compare the quality and safety of services and providers.Developed as a recommendation of the royal commiss
  
  Read more

• Which benefits are available to vulnerable people under Labour?

  23-08-2024 19:24 via theguardian.com
  
  As the winter fuel allowance is scrapped for many pensioners, we outline some other key benefits• Millions facing ‘cruel winter’ without fuel payments, Labour MPs warnLabour backbenchers are warning that millions of vulnerable people will face a “cruel winter” amid rising energy prices and a reduction in benefits, including the removal of winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners.Keir Starmer’s government has promised to improve conditions for those most
  
  Read more

• Free care for all was never going to work | Letter

  23-08-2024 18:31 via theguardian.com
  Rather than free care for all, funding should concentrate on better care for the less well-off, says David LipseyAlan Walker is right to condemn the “low priority given to social care compared with healthcare” (Letters, 14 August). And yet he praises as “brilliant” the job done by the Sutherland royal commission.The Sutherland commission was a disaster for social care. It wanted huge sums spent on providing care free for the better off, without tackling the real problem a
  
  Read more

• Lollipop review – impassioned, head-butting indictment of the social-care system

  20-08-2024 22:10 via theguardian.com
  
  Edinburgh international film festival
  Informed by her own experiences, Daisy-May Hudson’s portrait of a woman trying to regain custody of her kids is surprisingly even-handedDaisy-May Hudson is the British film-maker who in 2015 made a fiercely personal documentary about homelessness: her own. Half Way told the story of how she, her mum and her 13-year-old sister lost their home and then found themselves in the bureaucratic nightmare of hostels and halfway houses, and her camera showed the
  
  Read more

• Sixfold rise in foreign care workers in UK complaining of exploitation

  19-08-2024 21:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: RCN renews call for investigation into sector as unscrupulous employers target vulnerable workersThe number of foreign social care workers reporting that they are trapped in exploitative contracts has risen sixfold in the last three years, in the latest evidence of widespread abuse of migrants in the British care system.Data from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) shows that the organisation was contacted 134 times in 2023-24 by care workers reporting that their employers were demandi
  
  Read more

• Ellena McCabe obituary

  19-08-2024 18:41 via theguardian.com
  My friend Ellena McCabe, who has died aged 104, was the inspiration behind the creation of a social care reform campaign in Scotland at the age of 99, when she complained about standards in Scottish nursing homes.As a resident of a care home herself, Ellena’s concerns led to the creation of BetterCareScotland, the charity of which I am director of research, and which aims to get the Social Work and Care Inspectorate to properly address alleged abuses. Ellena was the campaign’s drivin
  
  Read more

• Unpaid carer says DWP’s fraud prosecution threat was ‘like blackmail’

  19-08-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Clemency Jacques told to pay extra £1,300 for accidental carer’s allowance breach or have case sent to CPSA vulnerable unpaid carer threatened by benefits officials with prosecution for fraud unless she agreed to pay a £1,300 penalty for an accidental breach of carer’s allowance earnings rules has described her experience as “like blackmail”.Clemency Jacques, a carer for her disabled son, was told by Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) investigators her cas
  
  Read more

• The Guardian view on ageing: the science of longevity is advancing | Editorial

  18-08-2024 19:30 via theguardian.com
  
  New discoveries about our bodies are emerging. But we need care as well as research to cope with ageingIncreased longevity is a triumph of modern medicine and health systems. In the UK, life expectancy has risen by about 25 years in a century – from 56 for men and 59 for women in 1920, to 80 and 83 in 2019 (since when it has slightly fallen back). While this extension is often taken for granted, rising interest in the science of ageing reveals an awareness of the challenges as well as the
  
  Read more

• ‘The hardest thing is to forgive yourself’: actor Samantha Morton and writer Jenni Fagan on the trauma of growing up in care

  18-08-2024 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Both women have used their work to process childhoods ravaged by neglect and abuse. Meeting for the first time, they discuss survival and anger, Fagan’s new memoir, and the state of the UK’s care system todayThe writer Jenni Fagan and the actor Samantha Morton have not met one another until today and there is, from the start, a sense of occasion – as if they were destined to be friends. They are together in London, on a sultry August afternoon, because of a book: Fagan’s
  
  Read more

• ‘You would be horrified’: the brutal calculation that decides if children in danger get help

  15-08-2024 17:00 via theguardian.com
  The child protection system is so stretched that some cases are simply marked ‘closed’ without children being seen at all, caseworkers say. In the northern rivers, the situation is among the worstFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastIt begins with a phone call. A 10-year-old boy rings, asking for help because his mum’s not coping, she’s been drinking and can’t look after him. A
  
  Read more

• The brutal calculation that decides if children in danger get help

  15-08-2024 17:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The child protection system is so stretched that some cases are simply marked ‘closed’ without children being seen at all, caseworkers say. In the northern rivers, the situation is among the worstFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastIt begins with a phone call. A 10-year-old boy rings, asking for help because his mum’s not coping, she’s been drinking and can’t look after him. A
  
  Read more

• NSW logged 112,000 children as at risk of serious harm last year. It has no idea what happened to 75% of them

  15-08-2024 17:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The child protection system is so stretched that some cases are simply marked ‘closed’ without children being seen at all, caseworkers say. In the northern rivers, the situation is among the worstGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastIt begins with a phone call. A 10-year-old boy rings, asking for help because his mum’s not coping, she’s been drinking and can’t look after him. A teacher calls, concerned about a student who keeps mi
  
  Read more

• How to fill the huge gaps in social care provision | Letters

  14-08-2024 19:03 via theguardian.com
  
  Families bear the brunt of politicians’ neglect of elder care, writes Alan Walker, while Maria Brenton and Tim Johnson look to the Netherlands and Ireland Gaby Hinsliff’s piece will have resonated with anyone who has ever given frail parents everything that is lumped together under the label of “care” (The shrunken state expects families to fill the voids in health and social care. Woe betide those without children, 9 August). It has always been the case in this country t
  
  Read more

• A cheque from Equiniti to pay my late husband’s care home fees got lost in post

  13-08-2024 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Money from the sale of shares was urgently needed to fund his care, but it only arrived after my husband’s deathMy 83-year-old husband had to go into a care home last year. We were self-funding, but the money soon ran out and, last October, I had to sell shares he had through share administration service Equiniti. I had registered power of attorney. The sale raised £14,720, but the cheque did not arrive, although Equiniti insisted it had been sent. This happened three times. It was m
  
  Read more

• Number applying to work or study in UK falls by more than a third

  09-08-2024 09:21 via theguardian.com
  
  People seeking skilled worker, health and care, or study visas drops to 91,300 in July after curbs introduced by ToriesThe number of overseas workers and students applying to come to the UK has fallen after curbs on visas introduced by the previous government.Workers and their family members applying on skilled worker, health and care, and study visas fell by more than a third in July to 91,300 compared with last year. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• The shrunken state expects families to fill the voids in health and social care. Woe betide those without children | Gaby Hinsliff

  09-08-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  As fewer Britons have children, more will be left to navigate our threadbare social care system and overstretched hospitals aloneIt was visiting time at the hospital, and the corridors were full of dutiful middle-aged sons and daughters. The woman who held the ward door open for me was balancing a formidable stack of Tupperware boxes: home-cooked food, in case the nurses were too busy to make sure her elderly father ate. Why hadn’t I thought of that? But there’s always something more
  
  Read more

• Challenges to deprivation of liberty orders in England soar by a third

  04-08-2024 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Campaigners say vulnerable people receiving care are being deprived of their freedom in order to save moneyGrowing numbers of vulnerable people receiving care are challenging deprivation of liberty (Dol) orders that can mean they are locked up or kept under restrictive supervision.Dol orders are meant as a last resort but campaigners say the increase shows that too often people’s freedoms are restricted as a cheaper option. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Labour is right to ditch the winter fuel allowance – it isn’t ‘robbing’ old people | Polly Toynbee

  02-08-2024 11:00 via theguardian.com
  Scrapping the so far universal benefit for millions of pensioners means money can be diverted to those who need it mostThat sounded like a totemic cut, one that everyone could understand. She cut old folk’s winter fuel allowance! Is it like Margaret Thatcher, milk snatcher, abolishing free school milk? No, not at all. In the budget, the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will need to make sure that poorer pensioners are better protected with improvements to pension credit, but the winter fuel paym
  
  Read more

• Greens say Labour should focus more on building council homes and that new housing plan is flawed – as it happened

  30-07-2024 18:30 via theguardian.com
  Rayner says housing target system will raise number of homes planned to 370,000 and confirmed targets will be mandatoryBalls, who, of course, is a former Labour cabinet minister, and a former shadow chancellor, questions whether Reeves is right to suggest that Jeremy Hunt is wholly to blame for the black hole. He says that other cabinet ministers and departments drew up the spending plans that she says were unfunded.Reeves repeats the point she has been making all morning about how the public we
  
  Read more

• Angela Rayner announces increase in new homes target to 370,000 a year – UK politics live

  30-07-2024 15:22 via theguardian.com
  Deputy PM accuses Kemi Badenoch of not understanding that housing was part of the reason the Tories lost the electionBalls, who, of course, is a former Labour cabinet minister, and a former shadow chancellor, questions whether Reeves is right to suggest that Jeremy Hunt is wholly to blame for the black hole. He says that other cabinet ministers and departments drew up the spending plans that she says were unfunded.Reeves repeats the point she has been making all morning about how the public were
  
  Read more

• I'm under attack and fighting back: the scandal trapping carers - video

  30-07-2024 14:50 via theguardian.com
  
  Debbie cares full-time for her elderly mother, works part-time as a cleaner, and claims carer's allowance of £81.90 a week. But she was one of hundreds of thousands of carers to receive a demand from the Department for Work and Pensions to pay back large sums of money for inadvertently going slightly over the earnings limit. Now Debbie and carers like her are starting to fight back and demand change to the systemKey workers quit jobs to avoid cash penalties for breaching carer’s allo
  
  Read more

• Up to 2m pensioners will struggle without winter fuel help, say campaigners

  29-07-2024 20:23 via theguardian.com
  
  Charities warn that means testing as part of Rachel Reeves’ estimated £1.5bn cuts may create ‘heat or eat’ dilemmasUp to 2 million financially struggling older people could lose annual payments worth hundreds of pounds under government plans to restrict the winter fuel allowance to the poorest pensioners, campaigners have warned.Rachel Reeves announced the plans in a speech on Monday outlining a series of spending cuts to help fill what the government says is a £22b
  
  Read more

• The Guardian view on supporting carers: flawed rules around allowances must be fixed | Editorial

  29-07-2024 20:16 via theguardian.com
  
  Ministers have signalled good intentions towards unpaid carers, and must now follow throughConor Thackray, one of the carer’s allowance claimants who told his story about overpayments to the Guardian, referred to the Department for Work and Pensions as operating a “catch-out culture”. This phrase sums up what is wrong with the current system. The rule that any carer earning over £151 a week must forfeit the entirety of the allowance enabling them to care for a family memb
  
  Read more

• UK politics: Winter fuel payments to be restricted as Reeves says there is £22bn spending shortfall – as it happened

  29-07-2024 19:51 via theguardian.com
  
  Chancellor suggests budget, on 30 October, will involve tax rises and cuts to spending and benefitsDowning Street has refused to comment on a report saying junior doctors are being offered a pay rise worth about 20% over two years.In a story for the Times, Steven Swinford reports:The British Medical Association’s (BMA) junior doctors committee has recommended an offer that includes a backdated pay rise of 4.05 per cent for 2023-24, on top of an existing increase of between 8.8 per cent and
  
  Read more

• Winter fuel payments to be restricted as Reeves says there is £22bn spending shortfall – UK politics live

  29-07-2024 17:06 via theguardian.com
  Chancellor suggests budget, on 30 October, will involve tax rises and cuts to spending and benefitsDowning Street has refused to comment on a report saying junior doctors are being offered a pay rise worth about 20% over two years.In a story for the Times, Steven Swinford reports:The British Medical Association’s (BMA) junior doctors committee has recommended an offer that includes a backdated pay rise of 4.05 per cent for 2023-24, on top of an existing increase of between 8.8 per cent and
  
  Read more

• No 10 ‘determined to bring strikes to end’ with junior doctors offered significant pay rise – UK politics live

  29-07-2024 14:23 via theguardian.com
  Junior doctors’ leaders have reportedly recommended offer which will now be put to BMA membersDowning Street has refused to comment on a report saying junior doctors are being offered a pay rise worth about 20% over two years.In a story for the Times, Steven Swinford reports:The British Medical Association’s (BMA) junior doctors committee has recommended an offer that includes a backdated pay rise of 4.05 per cent for 2023-24, on top of an existing increase of between 8.8 per cent an
  
  Read more

• Millions wasted, lives blighted: time to end the carer’s allowance scandal

  28-07-2024 17:00 via theguardian.com
  Changes will be complex and expensive, but so is the moral and economic cost of not resolving this sorry tale of misery and injusticeKey workers quit jobs to avoid cash penalties for breaching carer’s allowance‘DWP threatened to send in bailiffs’: the unpaid carers told to repay benefitThe carer’s allowance overpayments scandal is surely one of the great public policy failures of recent years: a tale of official negligence and cruelty that has seen hundreds of millions of
  
  Read more

• Key workers quit jobs to avoid cash penalties for breaching carer’s allowance

  28-07-2024 17:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: Teachers and NHS staff forced to take desperate measures to avoid falling foul of earnings limits, says ‘devastating’ study‘DWP threatened to send in bailiffs’: the unpaid carers told to repay benefitAnalysis: Millions wasted, lives blighted: time to put an end to the carer’s allowance scandalTeachers, NHS staff and other key workers who balance part-time work with caring for loved ones are quitting their jobs to avoid being hit with huge cash penalties f
  
  Read more

• ‘DWP threatened to send in bailiffs’: the unpaid carers told to repay benefit

  28-07-2024 17:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Carer’s allowance ‘cliff edge’ means it has to be paid back if a penny is earned over threshold. Carers tell their storiesA report by Carers UK has found teachers, NHS staff and other key workers who balance part-time work with caring for loved ones are quitting their jobs to avoid being hit with huge cash penalties for breaching carer’s allowance rules. We speak to people affected by the crisis. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• ‘We got failed by the police’: how veterans of Leeds riots stepped in to defuse disorder

  28-07-2024 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  A group of Muslim men put themselves in danger to calm unrest in Harehills over children being taken into careNadsy Qurban bent his neck to show how the crown of his head was ­covered in a number of burns, each the size of coins. “The smell was like I’m burning some goat or something, like I’m cooking some goat. That’s how bad it was,” he said.Needless to say, it hurt. But a week on, the burns he gained while putting out fires during unrest in the Harehills area
  
  Read more

• Sad last days of Harold Wilson revealed by Cabinet Office archives

  27-07-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  Former politicians pay tribute after files show ‘Labour’s most successful leader’ was forced to consider selling legacy to pay for his dementia careMargaret Thatcher described him as “the most skilful of politicians” and Tony Blair thought him “Labour’s most successful leader ever”.Such elegies on the death in 1995 of Harold Wilson, 79, the twice Labour prime minister who had Alzheimer’s and colon cancer, betray nothing of the reality of his
  
  Read more

• School worker jailed for sexually abusing autistic boy aged under 16

  26-07-2024 20:50 via theguardian.com
  
  Acasia Welburn pleaded guilty to three charges of sexual activity with child by person in a position of trustA school worker has been jailed for sexually abusing an autistic boy who was under 16 at the time, police said.Acasia Welburn, now 26, had been working at a school in North Yorkshire in a “trusted care position” when she abused the child. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Patients cannot trust CQC’s hospital safety ratings, says Wes Streeting

  26-07-2024 10:03 via theguardian.com
  Health secretary’s comments follow damning findings of interim report into state of English healthcare regulatorThe healthcare regulator is so badly run that patients in England cannot trust the safety ratings it issues for hospitals, care homes or GP practices, the health secretary has said.Wes Streeting said the Care Quality Commission was in such deep crisis it was not able to do its basic job reliably. His warning came after an interim report by the public care doctor Penny Dash found
  
  Read more

• England’s health watchdog ‘not fit for purpose’, says Wes Streeting

  26-07-2024 01:01 via theguardian.com
  
  Health secretary’s comments follow finding that Care Quality Commission struggling to identify performance issues in hospitals and care homesWes Streeting has called England’s healthcare watchdog “not fit for purpose” after an interim report found significant failings were hampering its ability to identify poor performance at hospitals, care homes and GP practices.The health and social care secretary promised to “grip the crisis” at the Care Quality Commission
  
  Read more

• Cost of England’s four biggest killer diseases could hit £86bn by 2050

  26-07-2024 00:30 via theguardian.com
  Study predicts overall economic cost of cancer, heart disease, dementia and stroke will rise by 61%The cost of England’s four biggest killer diseases could rise to £86bn a year by 2050, prompting calls for a crackdown on alcohol, junk food and smoking.The ageing population means the annual cost of cancer, heart disease, dementia and stroke combined will go from the £51.9bn recorded in 2018 to £85.6bn in 2050 – a rise of 61%. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

Follow @UK_Care on Twitter!