This week marks one year since Black April: the month that saw multiple, simultaneous benefit cuts piled in on the people living with disability, illness and poverty. This is not an anniversary for cards and chocolates. More an eviction notice in a brown envelope or a voucher for the local food bank.
Author Archives: wendy
Why is it too difficult to treat disabled people as human beings?
A year on, people living with disability, illness and poverty are paying the price for the coalition’s multiple welfare reforms
Identifying and supporting informal carers
Carers need to be encouraged to see themselves as carers
Image credit: Produnis
In this guest post, Dr Emma Carduff and Dr Anne Finucane, co-authors on a new paper published today in BMC Family Practice explain why it’s important to support the carers of people approaching the end of their lives.
Approx. 10% of the UK population have an unpaid caring role for a family member or friend. Many of these carers make a significant contribution to supporting people who are approaching the end of their lives. With increasing numbers of older and frailer people in the population, informal carers will play a vital role in caring for family members as health deteriorates and end of life approaches. In particular, care from informal carers, who are generally family members, is essential for those who wish to be cared for in their own home.
Carers can experience poor physical and psychosocial wellbeing, yet they remain largely unsupported by health and social services. It is essential that carers are supported both to maintain their own health and wellbeing and to care for their family member or friend. However, before they can be supported, carers need to be identified.
Harrow Borough Council needs to listen to carers says independent councillor
It is only by listening to carers that those in authority can have any hope of getting the kind of support they need right.
1:42pm Thursday 3rd April 2014 in News By Bruce Thain
A councillor has accused the council administration of snubbing a project aimed at helping carers which it helped to set up.
Councillor James Bond says the council is not listening to the issues faced by unpaid cares in Harrow.
The council launched the Carer Champion project and Cllr Victoria Silver was due to present a report into the experiences of some of the 26,000 carers on Harrow.
