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  Marek: I did not say there SHOULD be more money. Only that care could be better if there was. One of the things that used to upset me was that I could not get my residents out more. However, since they were people with dementia, the cost in terms of staff was so high that it could not be done. If you need to take people with dementia out (I am talking about those at the level where they need residential care), it takes at least one staff per client. It is hard to find this extra staff, and the money to pay them since it always means someone coming in on their time off. I used to find it anachronistic that young people with learning disabilities got at least twice the "pocket money" that the elderly get. My sister ran a learning disabilities facility and they did not know what to do with all the money.
  Each resident had all their own bedroom furniture, linen, tv's, dvd players, were able to fund any hobbies they liked, etc and were able to fund outings all the time. They were often hard put to find something to spend the money on. I assure you this is 100% true. My residents mostly did not dispose of their "pocket money" since it is paid to the families not the resident. Whilst I am not saying that families kept their relatives short of necessities they did not have anything like the quality of life that the youngsters had.
  I worked in Canterbury, and I think the quality of care was also affected by the fact that the majority of staff were not English. This is very disorientating for those with dementia and affects how they live their lives.

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