Care To Be Different’s aims and objectives are:
To campaign for lasting change in care fees funding and to put pressure on the NHS to meet its legal responsibilities.
As part of this:
- to show families how to secure NHS Continuing Healthcare funding on behalf of elderly relatives
- to stop the pattern of successive UK governments illegally forcing elderly people to pay for care that the NHS has a duty to provide free of charge
- to promote a transparent care system that respects an elderly person’s right to state-funded NHS care as much as any other citizen
- to highlight and stop the shocking waste of public money that occurs when the NHS continually obstructs a person’s legal right to NHS Continuing Healthcare
- to promote the need for vital nutrients (not just calories) in care home food and to campaign for nutritional therapists (not simply dieticians) to be part of the care team
Why do we focus mainly on people in care homes?
- Elderly people in care homes are often invisible to the wider NHS and the general public, especially if they have to pay for their own care. They can easily fall through holes in the care system – and have no one to fight their corner.
- Funding for elderly people in care homes is often wrongly denied.
- People who are forced to pay for their own care in a care home have few human rights in situations of abuse by carers.
- Many health and hospice services, including beneficial therapies are no longer accessible once you’re in a care home. Therapists may be reluctant to go out to visit, and health insurance companies often only cover treatment at specific centres. An elderly person in a care home may not be able to get there.
- Nutrition in care homes is notoriously poor and elderly care home residents often have no means of accessing high-nutrient foods to support their health.
“If the NHS stepped up to its obligations, stopped actively denying elderly people NHS Continuing Healthcare and stopped wasting taxpayers’ money on flawed assessment procedures, it might actually find it can provide better care to our most vulnerable elderly citizens.”
Angela Sherman, founder, Care To Be Different
