Social Care is dry in January

I bought The Times today and on the front page is the news from University of Oxford:

Dehydration ‘common’ among patients admitted from care homes:
http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2015-01-16-dehydration-%E2%80%98common%E2%80%99-among-patients-admitted-care-homes

When nursing and residential homes are struggling to manage an individual's care and look to refer to mental health services (usually) they know they need to asked the 'question'. This is about physical health: does the resident have an infection, are they eating and crucially drinking, are they in pain, constipated. ...

Although the headline augers badly and points to an ongoing (politically) 'inflammatory' problem within the sector, there is a great deal of compassion out there.

A resident's marked emotional distress and torment can upon investigation become a matter of how to also manage the staff's distress as they try to meet the individual's care needs. The latter does not help the former and amongst other things points to an educational need. This is especially so, if residents are to be able to continue to 'age' in their new 'home' with the additional complex needs that might follow.

Fluid balance used to be an element of basic nursing care.

Now of course - social care is not nursing care.

It is not always 'basic' either.