Elderly couples to stay together in care
Enlarge imageBy Tim Castle
BIRMINGHAM (Reuters) - Elderly couples will be able to stay together and not be split up when one partner goes into care, Health Secretary Alan Johnson said on Sunday.
"When a couple have lived all their lives together they should not be forced apart near the end of their lives," Johnson told Labour activists at their spring conference in Birmingham.
"This week (Care Services Minister) Ivan Lewis and I will be setting out plans to enable elderly couples to remain together when one of them has to go in to care.
"This will be part of our increasing focus on adult social care."
Charity Help the Aged welcomed the move, saying that too often couples were separated for reasons of administrative and financial convenience.
"If one member of a couple has got complex dementia it is quite costly to keep them together," a spokeswoman said.
She said care services needed to be more flexible and creative in treating the elderly, with more care delivered at their homes.
Johnson also urged family doctors to agree to open their surgeries outside office hours.
He is locked in a dispute with GPs over the proposals, which would require surgeries to open an extra three hours a week either at weekends or in the evening.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has pledged that half of all surgeries .....continued below
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will open longer in 2009 but doctors say there is no evidence that extra opening hours will improve patients’ health.The government is threatening to take money away from GPs and give it to local health authorities unless they sign up to the plan this month.
"People should have more choice over when they are able to see their GP," Johnson said. "I hope that GPs will vote to provide extra appointments at weekends and evenings.
"This is not just for the benefit of commuters. When surgeries in Canary Wharf opened early in the morning their first patients were not City hot shots, but hourly paid manual workers who lost money, or even worse their jobs, if they didn’t go to work."
Most GP practices opted out of providing weekend and overnight cover under a deal agreed with the government in 2003.
Out-of-hours cover is now provided by local health authorities employing their own GPs or contracting out the service to doctors’ co-operatives.
However, the new system has had mixed results, and the government is determined to fix a potentially vote-losing issue.
The doctors’ union, the British Medical Association, says the government has adopted a "gun-barrel method of negotiation".
A BMA poll of all GPs in Britain asking their views on the issue closed on Friday and will be published shortly.
The BMA has already said that working the extra hours is the least bad option, as it is unsure how local health authorities would spend the reallocated money.
By Tim Castle
BIRMINGHAM (Reuters) - Elderly couples will be able to stay together and not be split up when one partner goes into care, Health Secretary Alan Johnson said on Sunday.
"When a couple have lived all their lives together they should not be forced apart near the end of their lives," Johnson told Labour activists at their spring conference in Birmingham.
"This week (Care Services Minister) Ivan Lewis and I will be setting out plans to enable elderly couples to remain together when one of them has to go in to care.
"This will be part of our increasing focus on adult social care."
Charity Help the Aged welcomed the move, saying that too often couples were separated for reasons of administrative and financial convenience.
"If one member of a couple has got complex dementia it is quite costly to keep them together," a spokeswoman said.
She said care services needed to be more flexible and creative in treating the elderly, with more care delivered at their homes.
Johnson also urged family doctors to agree to open their surgeries outside office hours.
He is locked in a dispute with GPs over the proposals, which would require surgeries to open an extra three hours a week either at weekends or in the evening.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has pledged that half of all surgeries will open longer in 2009 but doctors say there is no evidence that extra opening hours will improve patients’ health.
The government is threatening to take money away from GPs and give it to local health authorities unless they sign up to the plan this month.
"People should have more choice over when they are able to see their GP," Johnson said. "I hope that GPs will vote to provide extra appointments at weekends and evenings.
"This is not just for the benefit of commuters. When surgeries in Canary Wharf opened early in the morning their first patients were not City hot shots, but hourly paid manual workers who lost money, or even worse their jobs, if they didn’t go to work."
Most GP practices opted out of providing weekend and overnight cover under a deal agreed with the government in 2003.
Out-of-hours cover is now provided by local health authorities employing their own GPs or contracting out the service to doctors’ co-operatives.
However, the new system has had mixed results, and the government is determined to fix a potentially vote-losing issue.
The doctors’ union, the British Medical Association, says the government has adopted a "gun-barrel method of negotiation".
A BMA poll of all GPs in Britain asking their views on the issue closed on Friday and will be published shortly.
The BMA has already said that working the extra hours is the least bad option, as it is unsure how local health authorities would spend the reallocated money.
© 2008 Reuters Click for restrictions
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