In your report (Families sending relatives with dementia to Thailand for care, 13 January), the assertion that “native authority residential care prices as much as £700 per week with non-public care costing round £1,000” is deceptive. It implies that native authorities run their very own care houses, when actually few do, since most councils closed down their care houses or transferred them to the profit-driven non-public sector a decade or two in the past.
Now, they pay charges to personal care houses for individuals dwelling of their areas who qualify beneath the means take a look at (having property of lower than £23,250). On the identical time those self same non-public care houses cost clients with property above the £23,250 threshold about £1,000 every week – who thus, in impact, subsidise councils the place the latter have managed to barter a decrease fee.
This combine creates big issues within the residential care “market”. Provision is patchy – non-public suppliers want to open houses in wealthier areas the place customized is extra assured and funds greater. Strategic, demographically pushed, planning for care – particularly its distribution – is unattainable.
Your report additionally says there aren’t any prescribed patient-staff ratios within the UK, with the end result presently being round one member of employees to 6 residents – in contrast, in line with the report, with one on one in Thailand. It’s broadly acknowledged that poor staffing ratios have a extreme impression on high quality of care, and but we’re solely too conversant in critical circumstances of understaffing and poor care showing often on the information.
Whereas the thought of exporting residents with dementia sounds weird, if the standard of care is healthier – why not? However I feel most individuals would like a high-quality nationwide care service, free on the level of use, funded out of basic taxation, and out there to all who want it.
Gillian Dalley
London
• Whereas it’s straightforward to know why individuals dwelling with dementia and their households would think about transferring to Thailand given the crippling prices of paying for care within the UK, doing so isn’t any panacea for the people concerned; neither is it an answer to the political problem of paying for care.
Anybody contemplating this plan of action must be conscious that folks relocating to Thailand will see their state pension and different advantages frozen, however should meet the doubtless excessive value of medical care in full. They may also not profit from the UK’s stringent safeguarding necessities and Care High quality Fee inspection regime.
Furthermore, the place somebody has misplaced the capability to take their very own selections, approval from the courtroom of safety or a clearly evidenced determination from somebody with lasting energy of legal professional can be wanted so as to transfer them overseas.
As a solicitor specialising in issues regarding paying for care, this can be a plan of action I’d wrestle to advocate to my shoppers. In my expertise, too many individuals are suggested wrongly that they should promote the household dwelling when actually their circumstances imply they don’t have to.
Dianne Steene
Steene Legislation Ltd, Elstree, Hertfordshire
• As somebody who has lately misplaced each mother and father to dementia, if I had been identified with it, I’d warmly welcome my household sending me to Thailand for care.
Having lived in Bangkok, I’ve skilled first-hand the hospitality of Thai individuals, the respect and love for the aged in Thai tradition, and the excessive stage of compassionate holistic medical care out there in Thai hospitals, to not point out nice wholesome meals and therapeutic sunshine.
Distinction this with the postcode lottery of social care within the UK, the shortage of integration between social companies and NHS care, hurried dwelling visits, repeated nursing dwelling scandals, a tradition that fears moderately than respects outdated age and dying, and exorbitant nursing dwelling charges.
James Hope-Thompson
Liverpool
• Arranging look after individuals with dementia in Thailand strikes me as a really smart concept, given the state of the sector on this nation. Why cease there? Aged care with or and not using a terminal sickness in a heat nation with decrease prices might present a win-win all spherical. This might give us some early post-Brexit commerce offers.
Personally, I would like Cuba. Many Cubans communicate some English, medical care is of a really prime quality, and there’s no chlorinated rooster at meal occasions.
Patrick Cosgrove
Chapel Garden, Shropshire
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