Health is something that I have always been interested in since I first entered politics. The constituency that I represent, Southend West, has the greatest proportion of people in the country aged between 100 and 111 years of age. The area has, for historical reasons, attracted elderly residents who wish to retired by the sea. I experience, on a daily basis, the problems that our elderly people are facing.
My constituents are very lucky. They have a wonderful array of care homes and an excellent organisation called South East Essex Advocacy for Older People to support them. Red tape and an ‘uphill struggle’ to secure funding have put the future of the South East Advocacy for Older People in question.
Recently I visited Seymour House, a Care Home that has been refurbished to a superb standard. It takes special people to run or even work in a Care Home and this is exactly what the owners are. However, they are faced with more and more Government bureaucracy. In my judgment the home which was superbly run met the highest standards possible. It was like a hotel, breakfast when the residents wanted it, en-suite facilities and even a state of the art television set. The owners had put a considerable amount of time and effort into ensuring they met all the statutory requirements.
To my absolute amazement it failed the inspection. Eventually after completing mountains of paperwork and with a further inspection taking place, the owners were eventually given the go ahead to open. However, it was an absolute disgrace the way the Care Home was treated. I was on the Standing Committee which scrutinised the Care Standards Bill which brought in the Care Standards Framework that Care Homes have to adhere to. If only I knew then, what I know now. Many of the regulations amount to nitpicking and trivia. They have little to do with the way residents themselves are actually looked after. Sadly, as a result of failed inspections a number of Care Homes have gone out of business, but for all the wrong reasons.
All this is happening while the number of delayed discharges is rising. The local Borough Council is being fined £100 a day for each elderly person that remains in the local hospital when they should be found a place in a Care Home. Social Services are being penalised and this means cuts to social services, as a result of which everyone loses out.
The South East Essex Advocacy for Older People offers people aged over 60 years of age and living in Southend-on-Sea support and representation when they have problems and need to make their voices heard. They perform a crucial service - giving a voice to those most vulnerable in society. In 2003 alone they received over 600 enquiries which resulted in them helping in excess of 400 people.
For the Advocacy Service to exist, funding is required. For example if the Advocacy had been unsuccessful with its Community Fund application, the service, or at least part of it, would have been forced to close in Spring 2003. This organisation unnecessarily spends much of its energy trying to raise funds to keep the service going. For an ageing population these services are absolutely essential yet those providing it face great challenges complying to government regulations or securing financial support. The Government really needs to look closely at how in future it will handle the situation which I have described. If it doesn’t address this very serious issue many older people in years to come will be penalised in terms of the quality of their lives by having a less than adequate service.
