Author Archives: Maureen
Shock Norfolk social care shake-up after serious concerns raised
Serious concerns over the social care provided to adults with mental health issues has led to Norfolk County Council taking action
Dan Grimmer Monday, January 27, 2014
1:38 PM
Serious concerns that social care for adults with mental health issues in Norfolk is not good enough has led to the county council taking responsibility for the service away from the mental health trust.
Norfolk County Council’s cabinet agreed to the move at a meeting today, which will see just over a hundred staff who had been transferred to the Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust five years ago go back to being managed from County Hall.
Issues around the service were aired at a meeting of the council’s community services overview and scrutiny panel in November.
Councillors at that meeting heard how, at one point, council bosses could not be confident the authority was fully meeting its legal obligations around care.
Bosses admitted then that the social care service for adults with mental health issues in Norfolk was not good enough, as they pledged to make improvements.
Million sickness benefit applicants 'fit for work'
25 January 2014 Last updated at 00:16
Nearly a million people who applied for sickness benefit have been found fit for work, according to figures from the Department for Work and Pensions.
The DWP claims 980,400 people – 32%, of new applicants for Employment and Support Allowance – were judged capable of work between 2008 and March 2013.
More than a million others withdrew their claims after interviews, it adds.
But disability campaigners said the work tests were “ridiculously harsh and extremely unfair”.
A spokesman for Disability Rights UK said many of those passed fit will not, in fact, be capable of entering the workplace in any meaningful sense due to physical or mental health problems.
“They are finding people fit for work when they aren’t and they are not even giving them the support they need to get a job. It is a disgrace,” he told BBC News.
Loneliness and periods of crisis ‘affect many in UK
Many people feared not being able to get around easily
20 January 2014 Last updated at 01:45
By Hannah Richardson BBC News education reporter
As many as a third of British adults feel they have no-one to turn to in a crisis, a survey has suggested.Nearly three-quarters of those questioned online for the Red Cross said they had already been through a period of crisis in their lives.
And 37% thought they could suffer one again within the next five years.
The main worries for people as they get older were cited as being the loss of independence and not being able to cope on their own.
About a quarter of the 2,043 people surveyed were concerned they would not be able to get around in the same way, and would be lonely and isolated.
‘Lasting impact’
A significant minority, about one in eight, said they felt those in the UK did not suffer crises in the same way as people in other countries.
The charity, which offers help and support in the UK as well as abroad, said support for the elderly would become “more vital” with an ageing population, shrinking budgets and health and social care services “struggling to meet demand”.
