How should healthcare services to care homes be configured – results from the Optimal Study

Adam Gordon is Clinical Associate Professor in Medicine of Older People at the University of Nottingham. He tweets @adamgordon1978 Claire Goodman is Professor of Health Care Research at the University of Hertfordshire.  She tweets @HDEMCOP Here they describe findings from the Optimal Study, funded by the National Institute of Health Research and delivered by a collaboration of researchers from the Universities of Hertfordshire, Nottingham, Surrey, City University London, University College London, Kings College London and Brunel University.

The UK care home sector, with 425,000 beds, is just over three times the size of the acute hospital sector.  It is home to some of the oldest and most vulnerable members of UK society.  The average resident is over 85, has multiple health conditions, cognitive impairment and physical dependency.  Providing care to such older adults is recognised to be complex and challenging.

Autumn Speakers Series: The boundary between health and social care

Adam Gordon is Clinical Associate Professor in Medicine of Older People at the University of Nottingham.  He is currently principal investigator for the Dunhill Medical Trust funded PEACH study which considers using quality improvement collaboratives to implement Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment in care homes.  His twitter handle is @adamgordon1978.  You can follow the PEACH study @PEACHstudy. He will be speaking at the upcoming BGS Autumn Meeting in London.

Care home residents in the UK receive their healthcare predominantly through the National Health Service. Their social care – primarily focussing on enablement to support activities of daily living and supporting participation in society – is provided by staff in their care home.

Or at least that’s how it looks on paper.  In reality, the boundary between health and social care is less well defined.  Providing care to the older people who live in care homes, many of whom have multiple conditions and are approaching the end of their life, requires frequent give and take between healthcare and care home staff.

Autumn Speakers Series: Benchmarking Practice in UK Long-term care, can we make it work?

Adam Gordon is Clinical Associate Professor in Medicine of Older People at the University of Nottingham and a Consultant Geriatrician at Derby Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He is a specialist advisor to the East Midlands Academic Health Sciences Network Patient Safety Collaborative on Care Homes and will be speaking at the upcoming BGS Autumn Meeting in London. He tweets at @adamgordon1978

Contrary to what might be gleaned from the lay media, the quality of care received by residents in care homes – whether from care home or National Health Service staff – is frequently exceptional.  Care home residents are amongst the most complex recipients of care within the health and social care system and so they can stretch even the most capable and dedicated of staff. It is therefore, perhaps, unsurprising that things do not always go to plan – even in the best of homes. There are also, undoubtedly, examples of care homes where things go wrong more frequently – where shortcomings in care are not so much sporadic, as systematic. This is unacceptable.