Lib Dems demand urgent reinstatement of local dementia services

The reasons given by the Trust are: to protect patient safety, prioritise urgent and emergency care and achieve financial balance. That’s management speak for “there’s such a shortage of NHS employed workers in this sector that the Trust is having to pay high rates for agency staff and has run out of money to do so”.So, in an obvious example of “robbing Peter to pay Paul”, our NHS Trust has decided to cut the dementia services and transfer the staff and the money it “saves” away from the some of the most vulnerable and needy members of our community.To ensure that those reliant upon these services are not abandoned – it falls to the charity sector to scramble to try to fill some of the gap. Thank goodness for Sage House! But they won’t be able to absorb all the people affected, and what they can do is dependent upon them raising sufficient emergency donations.Dr. Kate O’Kelly, Liberal Democrat County Councillor for Midhurst division has requested an urgent review from WSCC on the consequences of the NHS Trust’s reduction of dementia services on their Adult Social Care services

Dr. O’Kelly has worked in both the Memory Assessment and Complex Dementia Services Teams and is keen to pay tribute to how hard the teams work to support the most vulnerable and their families. Commenting on the NHS Trust’s announcement, Dr. O’Kelly said: “What’s clear is that we cannot just abandon these individuals and their families. A delayed diagnosis means a delay in support for families. For the individuals affected, a delay in treatment could easily mean further progression of dementia earlier – leading to more care needed sooner. If the individuals with more complex dementia have less support from the dementia services, then it will fall to the overstretched Adult Social Care teams to support them as best they can. The Adults Service are already looking at long waiting times for urgent assessments. The impact of these changes will mean many more of these individuals will end up back in an acute hospital which is the last place they should be.”Jess Brown-Fuller, Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for the Chichester constituency comments: “The whole merry-go-round of under-funding of public services coupled with attempts to pass-on responsibility for the most vulnerable in our society is symptomatic of a general feeling that “Broken Britain” has come to West Sussex - and now its directly impacting local residents and their families, struggling to provide the care their loved ones need and deserve. I don’t believe it has to be like this. The Lib Dems advocate a joined-up, robust and compassionate policy of integrating better-funded social care and NHS care. No more hospital bed-blocking, no more residents who need dementia services being side-lined. No more arguments about who pays. It’s all one budget. The two separate budgets and obligations of NHS and Adult Social Services would become one – with no robbing of one to pay the other”.