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Welcome to MHA's monthly bulletin, bringing you highlights of policy and research news in February relevant to older people and MHA. It offers a snapshot of emerging policy thinking, research and legislation to help you stay informed.
Policy and research overview for February 2015:
In February, MHA has ...
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1. Social Care
Care Act - consultation on changes to the funding of social care from 2016
The Government is consulting on proposals to change the way care and support is paid for from April 2016.
The Government is proposing:
The Government is also proposing to extend the amount of means tested financial help available to people to help with the costs of care. This is intended to help people to retain more of their assets and ensure that more people will receive help with the costs of their care from the state.
And the Government is seeking views on what sort of appeals arrangements should be in place to allow individuals to challenge decisions made by local authorities under the Care Act.
The Government's consultation runs until 30 March 2015. MHA is currently preparing a response to the consultation. If you would more information about this, please email liz.jones@mha.org.uk.
For more information on what else is in the Care Act, please see the Government's range of factsheets.
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2. Health Care
Prime Minister's Challenge on Dementia 2020
The Prime Minister has announced a new long term strategy on dementia focused on boosting research, improving care and raising public awareness about dementia. This includes:
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3. Regulation
CQC information about the use of hidden cameras in care homes
The Care Quality Commission has published information for families, carers and those who use health and adult social care services to help people make appropriate decisions on the use of hidden cameras, or any type of recording equipment, to monitor someone's care.
You can find out more in the recent MHA blog from our Director of Quality on this issue.
CQC guidance issued on the fundamental standards
The CQC has published new guidance on how health and social care providers in England can meet the Government's new care regulations. The new regulations - called the fundamental standards - will take effect from April. This guidance is intended to help providers understand what to do to meet the new standards and what enforcement powers are available to CQC if the fundamental standards are not being met.
Charity Commission welcomes Parliamentary support for stronger powers
The Charity Commission welcomes the recommendations for it to have additional powers to improve its ability to protect charities from harm. The report from the cross-party Parliamentary Committee appointed to scrutinise the Draft Protection of Charities Bill suggests that the Commission should have new powers to prevent individuals disqualified from trusteeship from assuming another position of power within a charity and to prevent charities that are the subject of statutory inquiries from taking certain actions.
These recommendations seek to fix current anomalies in the draft Bill which mean that, for example, individuals with convictions for money laundering or terrorism-related offences are free to serve as charity trustees.
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4. Housing
Changes to the Homes & Communities Agency (HCA) Regulatory Framework
The HCA has strengthened the requirement for registered housing providers to ensure they effectively manage risk and do not undertake activities that put social housing assets at risk. As part of this, providers will have to maintain a register of of their social housing assets and liabilities and subject their business plans to 'stress testing'. The HCA has also issued a Code of Practice to support sound governance.
For MHA, this means that we have to keep a list of our social housing assets and ensure that the MHA Housing Association Board receive relevant information to ensure that these assets are managed in a way that promotes social housing and protects the social housing grant investments.
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5. Research
£30m research collaboration to tackle Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's Research UK has announced a £30m Drug Discovery Alliance, launching a network of 3 new Drug Discovery Institutes at Oxford and Cambridge Universities and University College London. They will pool their expertise to collaborate on fast-tracking treatments for Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.
Top tips on delaying dementia from the Director of the Dementia Services Development Centre at Stirling University
Professor June Andrews heads up the Dementia Services Development Centre (DSDC) at the University of Stirling which works to get the information about delaying dementia or diminishing the symptoms to those who need it.
She has published a book called Dementia: The One-Stop Guide as part of their 25th anniversary project to find out what people need to know and make that information available as easily as possible. It includes top tips on how to minimise the risks of dementia for the over-50s.
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6. Politics
Election countdown - what are the emerging manifesto indications for older people?
With fewer than 70 days to the General Election, whilst we await the publication of the election manifestos, the main parties are starting to indicate some of their emerging election commitments of interest to older people.
The 'triple lock' on pensions
Pensioner benefits
Health and social care
More time for the over 65s to buy the hugely popular 65 plus pensioner bonds
A government-backed pensioner bond offering competitive rates of up to 4% interest is to be offered for a further three months till 15 May 2015. The scheme is aimed at those aged 65 or above who have at least £500 to invest and want a guaranteed rate of interest.
The one-year bond pays an annual interest rate of 2.8% before tax, and the three-year bond pays 4% before tax. Interest will be added on each anniversary after investment. Investment is limited to £10,000 in each bond, making a maximum of £20,000 per person.
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7. Other News
2014 Your Care Rating results - MHA achieves 97% satisfaction rating
MHA has achieved a 97% overall satisfaction score for the 2014 Your Care Rating survey. The independent national poll asks care home residents to rate their homes for a number of criteria relating to staff, care and everyday living. In addition, 98% of MHA residents said their home was a safe and secure place to live, and 97% said staff treated them to kindness, dignity and respect.
Read more about the results in the recent MHA blog from our Director of Care Homes.
Health devolution for Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester is to become the first region to get full control over its health spending. From April 2016, control of the £6bn NHS budget and powers over health, social care, GP services, mental health services and acute and community care will move to the area's 10 councils and 12 clinical commissioning groups, and then ultimately the elected mayor in 2017. NHS national standards will remain in place. The hope is that this will deliver truly integrated health and social care services to create a healthier Greater Manchester.
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