diverse types of challenges. Awareness and knowledge are one type of
challenges for service users and providers. This could mean service providers
are not up to date in training on new health care legislations. It could be that a
service user is unaware of services that could help them, for example, what
health benefits they may be entitled to, such as disability benefits Personal
Independence Payment (PIP), Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and
Attendance Allowance (AA). There are challenges that can cause anxiety for
service users, however there are all kinds of services available for individual
needs, for example, someone like Jim or R who are elderly with serious health
conditions may sometimes need respite care but unaware of what financial help
is available to them. There are services available in the UK and NI for stroke,
kidney failure and heart failure patients include:
stroke.org.uk
differentstrokes.co.uk
https://www.gov.uk/benefits/disability
https://www.kidneycareuk.org/get-support/advice
https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/our-research/mending-broken-hearts/
about-heart-failure/patient-support
There are challenges that R and Jim may face in their everyday lives, and as a
health care professional it is important for service providers to be aware and as
informed as much as possible of the services available so they can provide the
service users information that could aid them. Other challenges they may face
are:
Practical Challenges:
This sort of challenge is when individuals cannot do every day basic self-care,
for example R is not able to prepare his own meals and part of my role is to have
them prepared. In cases, like this a service provider may not be able to offer
this service because of resources and funding. For someone like Jim who must
drink plenty of water for his kidneys and is reluctant to drink water because of
his incontinence. For me to be able to encourage him to drink water, I would
need to have knowledge on the importance of why he needs to drink plenty of
fluids. There are different websites online that can provide information advice
on renal failure, for example, Kidney Care UK advice that if an individual has a
kidney disorder, then it is important to drink around eight glasses every day.
This will help keep the kidneys hydrated and working better.
They state that they “know how difficult being diagnosed with a long-term
condition like kidney disease can be. We’re here to give our total support to help
improve the quality of life for everyone affected by kidney disease and have