Social care and The Good Gym
The BBC’s front page this morning said that according to the report on social care for the elderly by the Care Quality Commission, the general standard of care is rising. However the report also says that one in four care homes in Britain are “adequate at best” and eight councils were named as needing to improve their care.
Of course there’s much improvement needed in care for older people but the news does appear to be generally positive – especially locally; Tower Hamlets was judged as “performing excellently”.
According to the report, excellent councils tend to encourage innovative models of service provision, and invest resources in partners to stimulate innovation. So a big thanks to St Hilda’s East, Bromley By Bow Centre and Toynbee Hall for working with us to provide a new service, CQC likes what you’re doing.
But we musn’t sit about on our laurels. Expert opinion is that top grades are being reached by allowing fewer people into care homes. This flags up a serious problem given the changing demographic of our population. According to the Telegraph, The Department of Health forecasts that by 2028, a quarter of all British adults will be over 65 and the number of people over 85 will have doubled. Combined with the usual problems of limited funding, this growing strain will increasingly demand fresh solutions.
A recent NESTA report subtitled “How transforming healthcare to involve the public can save money and save lives” said social enterprise is key in finding new ways to tackle the discrepancy between sheer volume of care needed and funding available. The Good Gym is part of a wider movement aiming to reduce the divides in our communities and build systems that allow and encourage people to help each other. in the process it aims to alleviate some of the mounting pressure on our existing social care structures.
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