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Category: Reform

Restraint Reduction Network Pledge

Restraint Reduction Network: Advantage pledges its support

Advantage Accreditation is delighted to announce its support for the Restraint Reduction Network. We have taken the “pledge” to help advance best practices and improve outcomes for those subject to restraint in health and social care environments.

The Restraint Reduction Network states that its mission is to:

“… reduce reliance on restrictive practices and make a real difference in the lives of people who use across education, health and social care services​.

We achieve this mission by sharing learning and developing quality standards and practical tools that support reduction. Our aim is to share learning and facilitate best practice and access to guidance that supports the minimisation of all restrictive and coercive practices:

Manual: Physical Restraint, Clinical Holding, Mechanical Restraint
Chemical: As Required Medication, Coerced Medication, Rapid Tranquillisation
Environmental: Low Stimulus or Segregation Area, Seclusion, Secure/Locked Facility
Psychosocial: Time Out, Restricted Leisure, Social or Occupational Activities, Electronic Tagging

Our work is steered by a cross sector Steering group that includes representation from experts by experience relevant professional bodies, regulators and government departments (and is chaired by Professor Joy Duxbury).”

Care home opens its doors to toddlers

A care home in London has become the first intergenerational facility in Britain by opening a nursery in its building. The move is expected to lead to both economic benefits for the care facility, and welfare benefits for the elderly residents.

The facility is an example of an innovative, intergenerational solution to Britain’s care ghettoisation that we described in our Future of Care Report. On a similar theme, the first mixed student and elderly residential development is expected soon.

Read more about it by clicking here.

Elderly lady - Advantage Accreditation

More than funding needed to change social care

Readers will be well advised to read a very interesting and provocative article in The Spectator on the need for reform in the social care system, concluding the system needs much more than just fresh cash.

The article, by James Mumford, who led a review of social care for the Centre for Social Justice, argues that funding is not the only answer for social care. Especially since, as implied in the last general election campaign, many seem unwilling to countenance a change in funding in order to fund those in need.

As Mumford points out, though, as we have consistently said on this blog, that lack of funding is not the only issue with our care system: “It is not a funding issue when a resident isn’t given a glass of water. It is not a funding issue when people in charge fail to deliver. And it is also not a funding issue that we, so often, look the other way or quite simply stay away.”

Mumford points out that when people are moved into a care environment, they are typically cut off from their possessions and their social connections, and are seldom given the opportunities to develop new ones. As a result, their mental well-being deteriorates along with their physical health. Mumford references a recent social experiment broadcast on television where children entered a care home and caused an increase in the physical health of residents, evoking a similar scheme in the US.

Mumford also echoes Advantage’s calls for us to think bigger and in a more imaginative way, citing the proposal from a New York doctor for smaller but more homely facilities for the elderly. Above all, he stresses the need to end the “marginalisation” of the elderly. There are no shortage of ideas to help with this. One idea mentioned in our Future of Care report called for housing schemes to be designed around the young and the elderly.

Increasingly, the mood seems to be that funding is not the only answer for care. Instead, we need radical and progressive thinking that recognises the need for a change of culture and mindset.