HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE

Individual Accessing Health and Social Care

Individual Accessing Health and Social Care

Introduction

This research is based on the scenario of following case study. In which a young individual Ali has become a victim of physical disability. In this paper after discussing the life of Ali I will discuss the issues such as health & social care needs, socio-economic lifestyle, employment, education, living conditions and cultural background of patient.

Overview

Ali was a 26 year old man with cerebral palsy, which affected only his legs, with a moderate learning disability. The severity of his condition depended on how he felt, but he could walk just with his crutches or rollator. He also used a wheelchair for longer distances. He lived with his parents before moving into a support living accommodation and shared the home with two other people who also had learning disabilities. He received 20 hours support from two carers who were employed by the local authorities, but was soon reduced to 16 hours per week because he was able to do more for himself.

When he was younger, he went to a special school with other children. At college he studied a computer and cooking course. However, he was bullied at school because the other children did not know how to communicate with him. He was ignored when he tried to introduce himself to other people, especially when he said he had a learning disability. He could read and write but was slow at everything else due to his disabilities. He had a part-time job answering the telephone in a local community college. Ali had an active social life, played volleyball twice a week at his local sports centre, visiting friends and also going to his nearby social club twice a week.

He had visited his GP on seven times over the past six months, complaining of dizziness and falling over for no reason. His GP was concerned that Ali might have been suffering from symptoms of epilepsy and he was referred to a neurological department for observation. Ali had regular contact with his mother who he was very close to and because his mother was the only family he had, he was very anxious about going into hospital. After 6 days in the neurological ward, a number of tests were carried out, with the results that Ali was diagnosed as having heavily atonic seizures and was started on a course of anti-convalsant treatment.

Health & Social Care Needs

The term health care refers to services that produce health (Feldstein 1999, 21-31). Physician visits, for example, certainly fall under this definition. Such services are frequently thought of as “health care” because they can exert a relatively direct influence on health. Other services (such as wellness programs) may exert a less direct, but perhaps greater cumulative, influence on health. Broadly defined, these services too would thus constitute health care.

An important debate among health policy scholars is how to distribute limited public resources to health care's various components in a manner that optimizes population ...