Home carers call for end to poor commissioning practice
People will only be sure of receiving safe dementia care if poor commissioning practices are addressed, the UK's professional association for the homecare sector has said.
The United Kingdom Homecare Association (UKHCA) said that local commissioners need to recognise that people with dementia need extra homecare and flexibility.
Colin Angel, the association's head of policy and communication, said that an increasing number of local authorities are trying to save money by limiting the amount of time carers spend with service users.
"Councils are effectively shoehorning homecare into very short periods, sometimes 15 minutes or fewer," he claimed.
"But people with dementia must not be rushed. We need to see government being much more robust about stamping out such poor commissioning practice at a local level, otherwise the (National Dementia) Strategy will never deliver its national ambitions."
Dementia is an increasing problem in the UK - one in three over-65s will die with some form of dementia - and will continue to be so as the population ages.
According to the UKHCA, two thirds of people with dementia live in their own home rather than going into a care home.