On Monday, the Prime Minister gave a speech in which he called for more people to be treated in their own homes by the NHS in future. As a partner to the NHS, in providing healthcare in their own homes to 14,000 patients, many with complex conditions, Bupa the leading international healthcare company, strongly supports his comments. Steve Flanagan, managing director of Bupa Home Healthcare said: “We agree with the Prime Minister’s views that it is better for patients to be treated in their own homes…

Aine Brady T.D., Minister for Older People and Health Promotion, noted a report ‘Analysis of Irish Home Care Market’ by the Irish Private Home Care Association (IPHCA) on home care services in Ireland together with the response by the Health Service Executive (HSE). The Minister said “maintaining older people at home with appropriate support has been the thrust of Government policy in recent years and has been significantly developed by the HSE through a number of community based supports such as Home Help, Home Care Packages and Day/Respite care…

In his latest Kaiser Health News column, Howard Gleckman writes: “President Barack Obama wants to increase funding for a government program intended to make it easier for family caregivers to get respite care. These hard-pressed families desperately need the helping hand. But the White House initiative is a symptom of all that is wrong with long-term-care policy in the U.S.” (Kaiser Health News). Read entire column.

Intensive care unit patients are not the only ones likely to be severely depressed in the aftermath of hospitalization. Family and friends who care for them often suffer emotional and social hardship, too, according to a prospective study from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine that is the first to monitor patients and caregivers during a one-year period for predictors of depression and lifestyle disruption…

USA Today: “One in five of the nation’s 15,700 nursing homes have consistently received poor ratings for overall quality, a USA Today analysis of new government data finds. More than a quarter-million patients live in homes given another set of low scores within the past year, according to data released today by Medicare, which first released the star ratings of the nation’s nursing homes in late 2008. The ratings are derived from inspections, complaint investigations and other data collected mostly in 2008 and 2009. …

Caregivers of severely injured veterans and their families face emotional and financial pressures and difficulty accessing military medical care. USA Today reports on the “thousands of unpaid caregivers - parents, spouses, siblings and war buddies - helping veterans injured in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars get through each day. [Barbara Cohoon, deputy director of government relations for the non-profit National Military Family Association] says the caregivers are a vulnerable group, often under-recognized, and in need of help to navigate the military’s medical system…

The American College of Physicians (ACP) has issued a position paper to guide ethical relationships among patients, physicians, and caregivers. The Journal of General Internal Medicine has published “Family Caregivers, Patients and Physicians: Ethical Guidance to Optimize Relationships.” The text and an online appendix of resources to help physicians manage relationships with patients and caregivers are available at http://www.acponline.org/running_practice/ethics/issues/policy…

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) praises a new report, Caregiving in the U.S. 2009, which offers a revealing portrait of the nearly one-in-three American adults who serve as a family caregiver. The study is based on interviews with 1,480 caregivers chosen at random and offers a national profile of people caring for adults, the elderly and children with special needs. It follows similar studies conducted in 2004 and 1997, but for the first time, caregivers for children, as well as those caring for adults over the age of 18, were surveyed..

“A new study says almost one out of three adults in the U.S. currently serves as a caregiver,” NPR reports. “The time and energy they put into caregiving becomes like an unpaid job. On average, they spend about 19 hours a week providing care, doing everything from bathing and dressing an elderly parent or loved one to balancing a checkbook or doing household chores.” The survey was sponsored by AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving, with funding from the MetLife Foundation.

Kaiser Health News, in a story produced in collaboration with The Washington Post, reports on adult day care. It “may soon become harder to find and afford. The almost 4,000 state-licensed centers around the country rely heavily on funding from state legislatures and charities, which have been hit hard by the recession.