Man with dementia sectioned for 11 weeks, due to lack of social care during pandemic

The lack of social care during the pandemic led to an 84-year-old man with Lewy Body Dementia being sectioned for 11 weeks, as his wife struggled to care for him on her own.

Sue Gallagher, aged 77, has revealed that her husband Bernard ended up being detained in hospital as she was unable to cope caring for him at home and he ran away from a care home that was giving him respite care.

Despite struggling to cope for over five months she received no help of social care. Mrs Gallagher asked for him to be assessed by their local doctor but was told they had sicker patients to look after.

She said: “The lack of adequate social care support before the pandemic started was a real issue and because of a lack of care during the pandemic he spent much more time in hospital than should have been necessary. Families like mine continue to find things difficult. I’m worried about the lack of support for people’s conditions, as well as for their loved ones at home.”

A new survey carried out by the Care and Support Alliance (CSA) of over 4,000 people with social care needs found the lack of social care (support with essential tasks such as washing, dressing and eating) during the pandemic has led to one in three feeling lonely, over one in 10 unable to get food or shopping and over one in 10 being unable to work.

Over a quarter said their health has deteriorated and one in seven said they have needed hospital treatment as a result.

The data also showed that one in 10 said they were often worried about how to cope and stay safe and nearly one in 10 had missed medical appointments.

The survey revealed 31 per cent of those who said they had difficulties carrying out day to day activities said they never got any help or assistance and one in four said they had asked the authorities for help during the pandemic but hadn’t received any.

Caroline Abrahams, co-chair of the CSA and charity director at Age UK, said: “Our new survey shows how a lack of social care during the pandemic has diminished the lives of many older and disabled people, and their unpaid carers, and put their health at risk. This has piled further pressure on the NHS when this was the last thing our over-stretched health services needed.

“As we start to imagine a world beyond COVID-19 it is vital that the Government extends its pandemic funding for care services and follows through on its pledge to bring forward reform proposals to fix social care, once and for all. This would give everyone involved in social care hope for the future, which is much needed given all the suffering and loss they have endured over the last year. It would also support an exhausted NHS to focus on recovery and on reducing the waiting lists that have ballooned during the last year.”

Seventeen per cent of the unpaid carers who took part said their health had deteriorated because of their caring responsibilities. Separate research from Carers UK has found that during the pandemic, 81 per cent were currently providing more care than before lockdown and most carers (64 per cent) had been unable to take any breaks at all in the last six months.

The Care and Support Alliance is calling on the Prime Minister to give social care parity of esteem with the NHS and to fulfil his promise to ‘fix social care’ by urgently bringing forward reforms and increasing funding to restore services, fill staffing gaps, improve the quality of care and enable many more people who need support to actually receive it.

The Care and Support Alliance (CSA) is a coalition of more than 70 of the country’s leading charities (including Age UK, Carers UK, Mencap, the MS Society, Red Cross, National Autistic Society and Alzheimer’s Society), calling for a properly funded care system.

The survey results are published in a new report ‘A Cry for Hope: why 2021 must be the year for social care reform’.