Home care

In Germany, informal home care is preferred to professional care services in the public discussion as well as in legal care regulations. However, only minor importance is ascribed to the opportunity costs caregivers face. Therefore, this article explores the influence home care has on the labor supply of caregivers who cohabitate with the care recipient. I use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel from 2001 to 2007, which allows researchers to merge the characteristics of both groups for the first time. Owing to diverging gender roles, I examine female and male caregivers separately.

Maintaining sick and elderly people at home, particularly as they approach the end of life, is a long-established challenge for health and social care services. Over the past 30 years palliative care providers have attempted a variety of innovations in this area. We report on a descriptive study of seven pilot Macmillan Carers Schemes in England. The schemes sought to provide practical and emotional help to cancer patients and families living in their own homes. Data are available on 624 referrals to the schemes over a 1-year period.

Families are the bedrock of long-term care, but policymakers have traditionally considered them “informal” caregivers, as they are not part of the formal paid caregiving workforce. As chronic and long-term care systems have become more complex and as more demanding tasks have been shifted to families, this view is no longer sustainable. The care transition process offers a critical opportunity to treat family caregivers as important care partners. Enhancing their involvement, training, and support will contribute to reducing unnecessary rehospitalizations and improving patient outcomes.

Although the proportion of older people using home care services has significantly increased in East Asian countries, the issue of the relationships between older people and home care workers in the East Asian context has received scant attention from scholars. This exploratory qualitative study aims to explore these relationships under the new Korean long-term care insurance system. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 22 family carers and private-sector home care service providers (home care workers and provider managers).

This qualitative study was informed by grounded theory and data were gathered primarily through semi-structured in-depth interviews with thirty-seven theoretically sampled former carers. They were all white British, lived in the East Midlands and were predominately over sixty (68 per cent) and female (70 per cent). With the exception of one, all had cared for a close relative, 65 per cent having cared for a partner/spouse. Most of their dependants were older adults and each case the cessation of caring had coincided with the death of the dependant.

Designed exclusively for those providing care within the care home, this two part title introduces carers to the values that underpin person-centred care. It assists them to develop their understanding of how principles of care should be reflected in their day-to-day practices by exploring the values of individuality, rights, choice, privacy, independence, dignity, respect and partnership. It goes on to look at the right service users have to take risks in their lives and how the care plan and risk assessment can assist to protect individuals from harm

One common myth about ethno-cultural minority family caregivers is that they do not use formal services. This study examined the intention of using home support and long-term care facilities by a random sample of 339 Chinese-Canadian family caregivers, using a modified version of the Andersen-Newman service utilization model. Filial piety, caregiving burden, care receivers, and health conditions are the common predictors identified.

Val Bunn and Caroline Baker describe a home-based respite service that carers say has made an enormous difference to their lives, and the lives of those they care for.