Category Archives: Carers

Families fear respite care cuts

November 14, 2013   autism, Carers, Downs syndrome, ukcuts

Big issue: Families fear respite care cuts

Warwickshire County Council plans to cut £1.7m from its budget could leave carers at breaking point, reports Mary Griffin

 
Rebecca Page from Priors Marston and her daughter Aleisha Page, who suffers from autism

“My whole world revolves around Aleisha,” says Rebecca Page. “It has to.”

Rebecca’s life plan has changed dramatically since her daughter Aleisha was diagnosed with severe autism at the age of three.

Seven years on, Aleisha is never left alone, needing one-to-one attention 24 hours a day.

Rebecca, who lives near Southam and left her career as a specialist teacher to become a full-time mum, says: “She headbangs until she’s stopped, she kicks and punches and she is extremely active, climbing up furniture.

“She’s a physically fit 10-year-old who functions somewhere between a baby and a two-and-a-half-year-old.

“She has no language but communicates through Makaton (a system of signs and symbols).

“You can’t turn around from her to run a bath. If you’re not holding on to her she’s gone.

“I can only sleep when she sleeps and then it’s like sleeping with a newborn – that half-sleep where you’re always listening out.”

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Martha Lane Fox, a 'force of nature' to get Britons online -but family carers need special help!

November 13, 2013   Carers, internet

 

Martha Lane Fox.

 

Maybe I just don’t know enough about what chief executives of major FTSE 100 companies get up to, but I’m mildly gobsmacked to find half a dozen of them hanging out in Gateshead on a wet Wednesday in October. At a reception for local councillors, I stumble across the CEOs of Argos and E.ON deep in conversation and watch the CEO of Everything Everywhere, a Dutchman of athletic build enjoying a casual lunchtime sandwich with a member of north Tyneside council.

“I am impressed,” the latter tells me later, “with the seniority of the people here.” He’s not kidding. But then, another CEO, Dido Harding, of TalkTalk, explains it me. They’re here “because Martha told us to be”. It just about sums it up. We’re all here, the CEOs, the local councillors, the cream of the north-east’s business fraternity, dozens of community groups, a hundred or so volunteers, me, because Martha told us to be.

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450,000 elderly people 'facing Christmas alone' this year

November 12, 2013   bereavement, Carers, Older care, Social care, ukcuts

Age UK is calling for elderly people to contact its support services rather than spend Christmas alone as research finds that many have no-one to turn to as the festive period approaches

 

Many elderly people are facing Christmas alone, the charity Age UK warned.

By Graeme Paton

6:30AM GMT 12 Nov 2013

More than a quarter of pensioners are not looking forward to Christmas because of loneliness and concerns that it brings back bad memories, according to research.

Some 26 per cent of older people – the equivalent of 2.8 million in Britain – suggested that the festive season would not be a time of happiness this year.

It emerged that some 450,000 over-65s faced the prospect of Christmas alone while large numbers of also feared it “brought back too many memories of those who had passed away”.

Research also found that almost one-in-five had concerns about not being able to get out because of the cold weather and shorter days.

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