IT IS welcome good news that a plan is afoot to save Auchinlee dementia care home for at least a year, if the owner, CrossReach, and health officials agree at their board meetings in March.
A drain on Auchinlee’s running costs seems to be nationwide problem: a shortage of carers in rural areas. Now, hopefully, the residents’ relatives in the Save Auchinlee Action Group have 12 months to help find these essential professionals locally.
The difficult question now facing them, the same one vexing health officials across the UK for many years, is: how do we recruit and retain local carers? According to recent figures, NHS spending on agency staff to plug gaps across Scotland’s health service has doubled from £82 million in 2011-12 to £175m in 2015-16 – at a time of dire warnings over shortfalls in the funding of health and social care. The lack of local carers exerts pressure elsewhere in the system. Lothian hospitals reportedly lost 10,000 bed days in November, as patients who were fit to leave blocked hospital beds, waiting for care packages to be sorted. This, in turn, leads to growing waiting lists for treatment and planned operations being cancelled.