Healthcare for UK care home residents is broken. How should we go about fixing it?

Adam Gordon is a Consultant and Honorary Associate Professor in Medicine of Older People based in Nottingham, UK.  He also edits this blog.

A lot of excellent practice takes place in care homes. This is contrary to the image portrayed in the lay media, where there seems to be near-universal agreement that long-term care in the UK is “broken”. The same media reveals less agreement about what aspects of long-term care, precisely, are broken.  Conversely, there is no shortage of suggestions about how one might go about fixing it.

Often overlooked in these discussions is the fact that healthcare provision to care home residents is the responsibility of the National Health Service.

Failure to meet the healthcare needs of residents must therefore reflect, to some extent, on the NHS and how it organises care for them.