Contemporary Issues in Health and Social Care

This article discusses the challenges faced by elderly people in the UK and the strategies used to provide care. It explores the roles of social services, health care trust and private sector in providing care. The article also discusses the influence of current issues in the care of elderly people and the proposed changes in legislation and practice.

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CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE
by
Course
Tutor
University
City and State
Date

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Introduction
Most elderly people experience various challenges such as frailty and general body weakness
which increases their vulnerability to falling and fractures. Another challenge is that majority of
them are living with various chronic and lifestyle disorders such as cancer due to prolonged
abuse of tobacco or alcohol, diabetes and heart problems among other challenges. This again
may cause other challenges to their health due to polypharmacy and other effects due to
prolonged use of drugs. In addition to all this, the elderly also face psychosocial challenges such
as memory loss and other mental health issues. For these problems it may be difficult for the
elderly to stay in their homes and most often, government and other private organizations create
specialized care homes that help accommodate and attend to these challenges that the elderly
people face. The greatest challenge however is that the elderly don’t readily accept this idea of
specialized care homes as they want to live their last days of life in their own ways (Løken,
Lundberg, and Riise, 2017). The government and the private sector is therefore forced to come
up with suitable strategies of providing a solution to this problem.
Mixed care provisions for the elderly and implications for service providers
There are varying needs of care among different populations. The age bracket therefore
influences the nature of services provided in the respective health care facilities all over the
country. The health care service providers not only target the sick but also the healthy to provide
health education and regular checkups in order to remain healthy and disease free. According to
Whitehouse, Jeyaretna, Wright, and Whitfield, 2016, most of the elderly health services include
end of life care, palliative care, dental health issues, mental health and psychological health
issues and counseling and heart related problems among others. The current care provision
services and strategies available to address the challenges of older people in the UK are the

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statutory, voluntary and the private sector. The statutory refers to those health services that are
organized and catered for by the government through the National Health Services (NHS). The
private refers to those services that are organized and operated as businesses to maximize profit
by the private sector. This comprises the bulk of most private hospitals and residential aged care
centers. The voluntary services on the other hand refers to NGO-funded and operated
organizations whose primary goal is focusing on the elderly people and the challenges facing the
elderly. Most of these organizations operate as charitable institutions and they are not profit
motivated. Apart from the statutory and voluntary care provisions, there are also informal care
provisions (Pacolet, Bouten, and Versieck, 2018). The informal care provisions refers to care
provided by groups in the society that also seek to help others such as churches, support groups
and family community based groups.
The bulk of statutory services are offered in the government funded hospitals and through
government ministries and organs. Government incentives and insurance services can also be
classified as part of the statutory care services. There are various implications for service
providers due to the different needs of elderly people based on the NHS framework. The NHS
framework is organized along various strategies such as improving health prevention, early
identification and early treatment of life threatening conditions. Provision of specialized support
and care towards healthy aging and living a healthy life. Identification of common health
problems, formulation and implementation of policies to help improve the health of the elderly
and also identification of people with risk of frailty and addressing the problem through guidance
on healthy living. In addition, NHS framework seeks to eliminate discrimination and other
barriers to access of health services among the older people. Some of the implications this has
despite differing health needs of elderly people is improved health care and healthy living for all,

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healthy aging and support for people with frailty, improvement in the ability to curb premature
mortality and improved quality of life for the older people (Batchelor, 2015).
Influence of the current issues in the care of elderly people
There are various current issues in the health of older people in the UK. These issues are
influenced by the health needs of older people, the condition of services, government policy and
legislation and the existing cultural effects on the nature of homes. Some of these issues that
affect the nature of service delivery among the older people in the UK include the life
expectancy and the disability free life expectancy, poverty and other social inequalities towards
receiving care among the population, increased hospital readmissions, financial constraints
towards accessing health and the growing population.
According to Greve, 2016, a rapidly increasing population without the rapid expansion of health
care facilities will definitely have a negative impact towards the health care. This is because,
there will be a strain towards the already overburdened health care facilities as they struggle to
accommodate the bulk of the population with diverse needs and concerns. Another bigger
challenge that can also be added to this is flexibility of workers. When the population grows
rapidly, in a bid to accommodate the health needs of the population, health care workers are
forced to change their schedules to accommodate the population. However, this may not work
well with all people. This being quite a big challenge saw the laying off of more than 300, 000
care providers which immensely increased the burden of the available care providers.
With regard to life expectancy and disability free life expectancy, it has been noted that there is
an increasing health gap for majority of the older people. Disability free life expectancy refers to
the number of years one can expect to live without a disability. In the UK, among people who are

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above 65 years of age, this possibility has been greatly decreased to less than one year. The life
expectancy has also faced major bottlenecks as there are chronic illness that have immensely
continued to trouble the older people such as cancer and HIV. These illnesses are coupled with
various psychosocial challenges and mental health problems such as dementia. The reduction of
life expectancy therefore becomes a great concern for the government, healthcare providers and
the elderly especially those faced with life threatening conditions.
In the recent years, Roberts, and Chapman, 2017 observes that there have also been many
hospital readmissions among the elderly people. This can be explained by the hard fact that they
receive poor quality care at homes or they are discharged from the hospital too early (Gibson,
Newton, Pritchard, Finch, Brittain, and Robinson, 2016. The likelihood of the latter is very high
as hospitals are overcrowded with patients with various diverse needs. They therefore end up
discharging patients too early to create room for more patients and to prevent the treated ones
from contracting other illnesses in the hospital environment due to their weakened immunity.
Alongside these reasons is also the increased poverty levels and financial constraints towards
accessing treatment.
Roles and responsibilities of social services, health care trust and private sector
These issues affecting the aged care health are tackled through the collaboration of efforts from
social services, health care trust and private sector that work jointly to prolong and improve the
quality of life for the aged population. Some of the roles and responsibilities that they are
charged with include respecting the autonomy of the patient in making decisions regarding their
lives. This is done through the informed consent process. They are also responsible of giving
moral and psychosocial support to patients and aged people who are not necessarily ill to help
them better their lives. Alongside this, they are also charged to adhere and respect their rights

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and provide them with a clean, healthy and disease free environment that suites their failing
health (Cooke, and Bartram, 2015).
Reasons why they work jointly, advantages and disadvantages
Some of the reasons why the social services, health care trust and the private sector need to work
need to work jointly is to provide an all rounded, client centered and holistic care to the elderly
people (Hall, and Hardill, 2016). This is achieved through understanding the specific health
condition of the person, their social status and roles in their family and in the society and their
economic capability. The other reason why they work jointly is to provide a suitable
environment for the patient to express their needs and concerns as the care providers are fully
informed about the patients’ health information and there exists trust between the patient and the
care providers.
Working jointly has various advantages and disadvantages. The advantages of them working
jointly is that they are able to foster trust with the patient. Working jointly also ensures unity of
purpose which gives a suitable direction to the course of treatment of the diseases affecting the
elders and the improvement of their lifestyles. According to Burns, Hyde, and Killett, 2016,
working jointly also facilitates the flow of information which in turn helps the care providers to
make informed decisions of on the health of the elderly and also be in a position to assess the
outcomes of treatment and therapy. Some of the disadvantages however, is that it may lead to
misleading information if the flow of information is interrupted and there are many possibilities
of breaching confidentiality of their health information.
Merits of the public/private sector

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While comparing the public and private sector there are various merits that are specific to each
type of care. For instance, the public sector is able to focus on the population as a whole and
therefore identify challenges that face elderly people at large and find ways of tackling these
challenges and possibly eliminating them. Österle, 2017 also maintains that the public sector also
formulates policies that influence healthy living, early identification of life threatening
conditions and providing solutions to these life threatening conditions. In addition, the public
sector is also able to offer cost subsidy as it is funded by the government. On the other hand, the
private sector has an advantage over the public sector in that it is able to give client centered
treatment for the diseases and explore various treatment options as they are not so much limited
to policy and bureaucracy that exists in the public funded facilities.
Proposed changes in legislation and practice
The care act in the UK which came into effect fully in 2016 has really helped in improving the
independence and wellbeing of older people argues Dixon, King, Matosevic, Clark, and Knapp,
2015. This is because the act has clarified the role of the government through the local
authorities in providing care and support to the elderly. The importance of legislation is improve
the practice through setting standards that seek to promote the dignity, guarantee human rights,
safety and quality of care in both the formal and informal sectors. The legislation cuts across
both the elderly and the service providers and protects both from abuse.
Despite the fact that the UK population is not as diverse as other societies in other parts of the
world, there is still need to respect the little diversity through ensuring justice and equality in
care provision and access to the elderly people argues Milligan, (2017). This calls for recognition
of the importance and the contribution of senior citizens in the economy and the society so as to
be able to treat them with equality, dignity and respect. Equality also requires the support of

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people with diverse needs flexibility in care to accommodate various differences among people.
equality in healthcare for the elderly call for various interventions such as consent, selection and
retention of patients using legitimate concerns, unconditional positive regard and legal and
ethical values.
Equality also calls to granting of the entitlements that old people have care. In my work place for
instance, older people are entitled to available, accessible and affordable health, a person
centered approach towards care due to the long term effects of using certain drugs which is quite
a challenge among various older people. Equality of the elderly with other classes of the
population calls not only for equal chances of treatment but equal and enough attention
depending on the health requirements and the immunity of the patients.
Roles of both formal and informal sectors
According to Thompson, 2016, both the formal and informal care providers are charged with the
responsibility of adopting a charter of human rights that is suitable in empowering the elderly.
They are also charged with promoting healthy ageing by ensuring the elderly age as actively as
possible. In addition, they are also charged with the responsibility of raising awareness on abuse
of older person’s rights abuse and encourage other members of the society to rise up to support
this course. The long term effect of this responsibilities if well-handled is that it helps mitigate
the health needs of older people, improve their length and quality of life and most importantly
raise a generation of older people who are conscious of their rights and are ready to stand in the
gap to ensure rights are guaranteed not only to themselves but also to others.
Conclusion

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In conclusion, it is clear and evident to point out that the elderly people in the UK face quite a
number of challenges in the society ranging from health, psychological and socioeconomic
issues. There are various ways in which service care is fragmented in order to offer solutions to
all these problems. The service care providers are often faced with various emerging issues such
increased population, shortage of healthcare providers and other barriers. However in the midst
of all this it is important to recognize and respect patient’s rights as this impacts positively in the
care provision in the later years.

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