Social care
Public health directors in England are asked to take charge of Covid-19 testing | World news
Ministers have asked local directors of public health to take charge of Covid-19 testing in English care homes in what will be seen as a tacit admission that centralised attempts to run the programme have fallen short. In a letter to sector leaders, seen by the Guardian, the care minister, Helen Whately, acknowledged that testing …
Doctors, nurses, porters, volunteers: the UK health workers who have died from Covid-19 | World news
A number of NHS and private healthcare staff, from heart surgeons to nurses, porters and volunteers, have sadly lost their lives to the coronavirus in the UK. The government says there have been 27 verified deaths of NHS staff during the pandemic, but others have also died. The Guardian has recorded 50 deaths that have …
Making technology work for homecare | Letters | Society
David Brindle is absolutely right that most homecare agencies are at breaking point (Society, 23 October). Reform is long overdue. The trend towards people wanting to receive care in their own homes is one the country needs to embrace. We need to build the system around this choice, and currently we are failing. High staff …
Alexa’s robotic voice leaving dementia patients ‘deeply distressed’, social care report finds
Amazon Alexa’s robotic voice is causing “deep distress” for dementia patients by telling them to take their medicine, a new report has warned. The technology think tank, Doteveryone, said older social care patients were often left confused by new gadgets and fearful they would replace contact with human carers. It also found that disabled people feared …
Who’s Matt Hancock? The health secretary’s only legacy will be how quickly he’s forgotten | Denis Campbell | Opinion
I have never seen such an empty vessel as a cabinet minister”. This is one NHS chief executive’s verdict on Matt Hancock’s stint as health and social care secretary. It is a harsh judgment, but it reflects a widespread view among NHS bosses that if Boris Johnson’s imminent formation of his first government leads to …
