Care overhaul to help Perthshire OAPs

WORK on readying Perthshire for the challenges of an ageing population will go before councillors tomorrow.

PKC’s housing and health committee is meeting to hear how partnership working involving public, private and the voluntary sector is seeking to meet the demands by transforming older people’s services.

By 2031 Perth and Kinross’s population aged 65-plus is set to rise by nearly three quarters – well ahead of national figures of 61 per cent.

Around £2.3 million has been allocated for service development in the area, following a bid submitted by NHS Tayside and PKC.

The committee will be told that a broad number of measures have been started over the last six months across four key objective areas:

l Reducing the number of hospital bed days lost due to delayed discharges of people aged over 65,

l Reducing the number of unplanned hospital and care home admissions of over-65s,

l Improved support for people with dementia,

l Building community capacity.

Committee convener Peter Barrett said: “We are still in the very early stages of implementing this transformation.

“This is a large and complex piece of work that will take some time, but the measures we have implemented have already produced encouraging results.

“We are beginning to see an impact on the number of ‘delayed discharge’ days lost each month in local hospitals, for example.

“We have also seen a significant reduction in the waiting time for patients awaiting a social work service.

“Over the next six months we will see a growing emphasis on work being done to reduce the number of non-emergency admissions to hospital for people over 65.”