Age Continuum Essay

This essay aims to analyse how policy and partnership working contributes to practice and how it influences care delivery along the age continuum. Health policies are decisions made by the government, in order to plan for current and future health care needs, whereas partnership working is about creating relationships between the service user, carer, health professionals and the community so as to provide better health care (Department of Health 2012). This paper intends to provide supporting evidence for the group presentation in which my colleagues and I looked at leg ulcers in people aged 65 and over, where we highlighted the various issues affecting our chosen age group. According to the DH (2010) older people of 65 years and over use almost two thirds of hospital beds which makes them the highest in health care expenditure, that is why the government promotes the health and wellbeing of the elderly by setting up national policies, strategies and guidelines to prevent, manage, improve care quality and reduce health care costs. In our group presentation we focused on various issues such as leg ulcer types and the treatments or therapies used in their management. We also highlighted the physical, psychological and social impacts that leg ulcers may have on people, the legal, ethical and professional issues which are key in partnership working, health promotions, nurse’s roles in communication and dealing with non-compliance. We went on to discuss the need   for health care professionals to familiarise themselves with the policies that govern the management of leg ulcers in order to come up with a plan that promotes healing and prevent recurrence. The presentation therefore led us to further explore the importance of communication, partnership working and implementation of government policies in practice when caring for older people with leg ulcers.

According to Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (2010) a leg ulcer is an open wound between the knee and...