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Primary Health Care for Older People
In order to deliver the quality of health care services to older people, it is required by practitioners to deliver primary health care with incorporating wide range of factors that positively assist the older people. Along with this, primary health care model is a key feature in the delivery of the health service because it aims towards including the holistic factors that impact on overall health and wellbeing (Kalsi et al. 2015). The main principles of PHC are associated with the equity, health promotion, the participation of community as well as multisectoral approach so that they may provide quality of healthcare services.The key aim of undertaking this research is to critique the concept of Primary Health Care (PHC) in the context of delivering quality care and services to older people. In addition to this, the discussion will look at the services of primary health care for older people and estimate the ways through which resources are allocated in a proper manner.
Explanation of PHC for older people
With the ageing world, there are around 600 million people those who have attained the age of 60 and the ratio will get double by the year 2025. In the present context, older people face risk associated with chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes as well as Osteo-muscular condition. Therefore, with the increasing burden of chronic disease among older people World Health Organization (WHO) has recognized the critical role that is PHC centrally playssignificant role in maintaining the health of older people with addressing their need so that services are easy adapted and accessible by the older populations (Comas-Herrera et al. 2018).
It has been further stated that primary healthcare is a term that is used to describe the first interactionwith a person in the healthcare system in the situation that they feature health problem or issue which is not an emergency. Primary Health Care is also termed as the initial stage of diagnosis where patients are being reviewed. Greene (2017) has stated that it is the part of the health system where individual providesa range of services, for instance, general practitioner (GP), physiotherapist or pharmacist that are directly in contact with the service users.
In order to provide primary healthcare for older people, World Health Organization has engaged in initiating “age-friendly” project that focuses on educating PHC providers (i.e. GP, physiotherapists, physicians etc.) regarding the detail requirements of their older clients.
The Age-friendly PHC emblem outlooks for undertaking the action into major areas such as improving the approaches, education and training of the health care providers so that they may easily treat the patients accordant with the conditions so that it may not distress older persons, it is also required by PHC provider to empower patients so that they may remain healthy, and it is required to adapt PHC management systems accordant with the needs and requirements of older persons. Making physical access informal for the older persons so that they may have mobility, vision or hearing impairments. Therefore, PHC acknowledges that healthcare is not termed as the short-lived intervention; rather it is defined as an on-going process of enlightening people's lives and relieving the essential socioeconomic situations that subsidize to deprived and underprivileged health of the older people (Buckinx et al. 2015). It has been evaluated that implementation of the PHC system for the older people would positively assist towards maintaining the health, development, and supporting political interventions rather than impassiveapproval of the economic conditions.
Evaluate the way resources/services are allocated
In order to provide Primary Health Care for older people,it has been assessed that practitioners are provided with the effective and adequate resources that support in delivering the quality of the care services (Curtis and Burns, 2015). In regard to this, it has been explained that there isa different way in which the resources/services are allocated by evaluating their effectiveness in supporting older people such as-
Planning: The most common way to allocate the resources/services are associated with undertaking the planning. It has been assessed that securing possessions for primary health care (PHC) mainly undertake the consideration of the entire health sector so that it each and every level of resource can be easily accessed. On the other hand, to support the older peopleit has been assessed that reshaping resource distribution would be less than the redistribution of existing resources so that it can be managed accordant with the PHC priorities (Knapp et al. 2018). With the help of undertaking the planning, approach resources should be allocated and distributed by the authorities geographically to condense the inequalities in health care with the provision of an appropriate mix of different levels of care. With the help of undertaking this practice, it has been evaluated that it will effectively support the older people by providing them required services accordant with their need.
Community participation: In order to make the fullest use of the local, national and other available resources it has been stated that community participation is considered as one of the significant approaches. Selecting this approach for the resource allocation in health care is sustainable due to its lawn roots nature as well as an emphasis on self-sufficiency. With the participation approach healthcare system would be dependent on the domestics and international development assistance so that they may provide required services to the patients (Pacolet et al. 2018). In addition to this, it has been evaluated that resource distribution should upkeep not only interferencesbut it also engage in generating the best probable health outcomes accordant with the community and individual preferences. Moreover, with the allocation of resources in the setting would also result in generating the economic advantages, with minimising the waste and creating new employment opportunities in the healthcare setting so that they may easily treat the older people.
Critical Discussion of PHC services delivery for older people
With the above assessment of concept, it has been discussed that there are a different model of care as well as systems through which practitioners easily engage in delivering the primary healthcare services to older people so that it might not impact their health and well-being (Gorman, 2017). There are many benefits and downsides primary healthcare services that are explained below:-
Advantages of Primary Health Care:
Community-based care: In order to deliver successful healthcare services for older people, the existing model is community-based primary health care (CBPHC) that mainly focuses on undertaking the input from clients, informal caregivers, and health care providers regarding the health of the client. In addition to this, Community-Based care is also envisioned to deliver first-contact health services to guarantee the continuity of care along with the ease of movement across the system so that diverse services can be provided to the patient.
Integrated health-care services: Another health care service delivery system for the older patient focuses on integrated health care services. It mainly focuses on the principle of providing the 'right care' in the 'right place’ so that it benefits the overall health of older patients. Implementation of this model of care is significant for the older people it will provide an umbrella that mainly covers the entire essential care services under one authority and the authority is in the position to set the standard of care desired (Curtis and Burns, 2015).
Disadvantages of PHC:-
Cost-Ineffective Solution:No doubt that operational cost of the primary healthcare centres are lower than other healthcare centres. But, this would require the restructuring of the general practices and secondary-primary care. This makes it cost ineffective as the switching cost is high. Government needs to provide subsidies and salaries to the doctors and other medical staff. The PHC are high in number than other medical centres. Therefore, providing medical staff at each centre would cost more to government (Curtis and Burns, 2015).
Irrational Service Offering:There has been disproportionation in the service offering of the primary health care. The main focus is given to the poor class of the society and majority of the services are for them only. This leads to ignorance of middle and rich class.
Less Effective Healthcare:Usually, it is considered that primary healthcare services would be effective in improving the health condition of a country as a whole. There are other factors too that might affect the average health. Many people believe that applying the principles of the primary health care is difficult to apply on a larger scale as it requires knowledge, skills, and expertise (Gorman, 2017).
From the above essay, it has been concluded that to succeed in providing primary health care services for older people it is required by practitioners to engage in the integrated care models with featuring the set of components and delivery strategies so that it immensely benefit their health. However, it has been further assessed that integrated delivery of services will strengthen the delivery of care and it would positively contribute towards delivering the better outcome and reduce cost significantly.
References
Buckinx, F., Rolland, Y., Reginster, J.Y., Ricour, C., Petermans, J. and Bruyère, O., (2015). Burden of frailty in the elderly population: perspectives for a public health challenge. Archives of Public Health, 73(1),19.
Comas-Herrera, A., Wittenberg, R. and Pickard, L., (2018). Long-term care for older people in the UK: structure and challenges. In Long-Term Care: Matching Resources and Needs. Routledge.
Courtin, E. and Knapp, M., (2017). Social isolation, loneliness and health in old age: a scoping review. Health & social care in the community, 25(3), pp.799-812.
Curtis, L.A. and Burns, A., (2015). Unit costs of health and social care 2015. Personal Social Services Research Unit.
Gorman, M., (2017). Development and the rights of older people. In The ageing and development report (pp. 21-39). Routledge.
Greene, R.R., (2017). Social work with the aged and their families. Routledge.
Kalsi, T., Babic-Illman, G., Ross, P.J., Maisey, N.R., Hughes, S., Fields, P., Martin, F.C., Wang, Y. and Harari, D., (2015). The impact of comprehensive geriatric assessment interventions on tolerance to chemotherapy in older people. British journal of cancer, 112(9), 1435.
Knapp, M., Cambridge, P., Thomason, C., Beecham, J., Allen, C. and Darton, R., (2018). Care in the community: Challenge and demonstration. Routledge.
Pacolet, J., Bouten, R. and Versieck, K., (2018). Social protection for dependency in old age: a study of the fifteen EU member states and Norway. Routledge.
Prince, M.J., Wu, F., Guo, Y., Robledo, L.M.G., O'Donnell, M., Sullivan, R. and Yusuf, S., (2015). The burden of disease in older people and implications for health policy and practice. The Lancet, 385(9967), 549-562.
