Hodges' Model: Welcome to the QUAD: Social Care is dry in January

Hodges' model is a conceptual framework to support reflection and critical thinking. Situated, the model can help integrate all disciplines (academic and professional). Amid news items, are posts that illustrate the scope and application of the model. A bibliography and A4 template are provided in the sidebar. Welcome to the QUAD ...

Friday, January 16, 2015

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.