For a family carer, it is important for the NHS to communicate well. Taking your loved one who has dementia for an outpatient appointment takes a considerable amount of planning, sometimes involving taking another person with you. Frustration & added stress all round if cancelled. #socialcare

Amanda's point is valid, & it is worth pointing out that #socialcare is a service that should be able to assist swift discharge from hospital. It is also a service that helps children, families and working age adults to live their lives as independently as possible. Fix social care for everyone.

We should not think that a high level of satisfaction at 64% for #socialcare is good enough, especially as the King's Fund report that while more people are asking for support than a decade ago, fewer are now receiving it. This is most likely due to tightening of criteria by Councils.

The highest cost for care providers is in paying the staff. You need a lot of paid care givers to operate a care home or home care organisation. There are opportunities for AI to help reduce business costs, but I would argue that hands on care is best done by people and not robots. #socialcare Ends/

Supporting a person with dementia is often a negotiation, reading reactions, working out whether a person is in pain, tired, thirsty, bored, lonely or just wants a hug. And every person with dementia is different from the next. Let's work on training our human care givers to improve #socialcare 2/

Evaluating homecare is not the same as inspection. If #socialcare reform is going to be successful, then we need to know whether the models of care we have developed are working for the people who need care and their families. How, on a day-to-day basis, is care being delivered? Can we do better?

Labour are taking their time with #socialcare reform, but it won't be easy. If it was easy to reform, then we would have seen it already. It seems to me that reform concerns major structural shifts in organisation of NHS & councils, cartloads of cash and more important, cultural change in attitudes.

Having support in the right place so people can be discharged from hospital when medically fit is deparately needed. But let's not forget that #socialcare services are also there for young people, children, working age people with physical or mental health needs, people with young onset dementia.

No estoy durmiendo

As dementia has progressed in this relatively young man, more formal help is needed. But the help available has been designed for people who are much older. Support from residential or daytime respite care is rare to non-existent for those with young onset dementia. #socialcare needs a rethink. End/

In a family I know well, the husband with dementia, not at retirement age, needs exercise and stimulation, as well as medication. He needs friends, fresh air, excitement, enjoyment, and connection with the life he had before. Also help with maintaining hobbies and having holidays. #socialcare 4/

Undertaking activities, events, even shopping together becomes ever more difficult because your partner doesn't know what to do, wear to go, how to behave, feels lost, can't understand what other people are saying, or follow simple requests. Conversation dries up. It's heartbreaking. #socialcare 3/

Somethings change immediately. The driving licence is away. They wear an ID bracelet telling the world they have dementia. All sorts of professionals are now part of both of your lives. You may have to retire early because their behaviour is unpredictable. They are sad and scared. #sociacare 2/

Young onset dementia is devastating for the person and their family. Imagine you have made plans for your retirement, perhaps including travel, taking up activities that were impossible while you were working. Then, bang, your 58 year old partner is diagnosed with dementia. #socialcare 1/

After all, when a person is admitted to an NHS hospital, the treatment is not costed before admission, limits are not put on how much can be spent per treatment episode. That would not be practical. Neither are the prescriptive allocations of care allowances for #socialcare Ends/

I'm not suggesting an open ended arrangement without accountability, but a giving care providers a framework from which they can work. Rather than what is current, that is social services limiting family carers to a set number of hours. The rigidity of #socialcare can be overcome. 5/

A radical rethink is needed on just how #socialcare is delivered in a person's own home. It needs to be more responsive and sensitive to both the person needing care and to the needs of the family carer. Care providers could be given the freedom to deliver what the carer needs at anyone time. 4/