Category Archives: Carers

Three’s a crowd: Living with your lover and their carer

How easy is life with an outsider always in your home?

 Zoe Hallam was living with her boyfriend Will Iles in university halls of residence as well as having 24 hour care

If your partner is disabled, they might also have a full-time carer. So how easy is life with an outsider always in your home?

“It took me a while to get used to waking in the morning to see a stranger lift my girlfriend out of bed and dress her,” says Will Iles, a market analyst from London. He and his girlfriend Zoe Hallam were living in halls at Oxford University back then and the situation with the stranger, her care assistant, was made even more cosy because it was a single bed the couple were sharing.

JLS star Oritsé Williams tells the story of Britain’s Youngest Carers

Helping hand: Oritse Williams

When boy band JLS were propelled to stardom via The X Factor, founder member Oritsé Williams knew what he was going to spend his new found riches on… but it wasn’t just designer clothes and a flashy car.

Instead, he was relieved to know that he could finally afford to look after his mother Sonia, who suffers from Multiple Sclerosis.

Dying need ‘free social care’, cancer campaigners say

Providing free social care could save £69m a year on the care of cancer patients alone, the report says.

Free end-of-life social care is needed to save the NHS in England money and improve patient care, campaigners say.

Macmillan Cancer Support says it could save the NHS in England £69m a year on the care of cancer patients alone.

Its analysis is based on a review of patient surveys, official NHS spending data and interviews with senior decision-makers.

Social care is currently means-tested, but ministers are considering providing it to everyone at the end of life.

About half of people end up dying in hospital despite eight in 10 saying they would prefer to die at home.