Category Archives: Carers

Elderly patients face longer hospital waits for care home transfer

May 14, 2013   Carers, hospital, Older care, Social care

Elderly patients are waiting more than a month in an NHS hospital before being transferred into a care home, campaigners warn today.

 

Patients now wait an average of 30.3 days before finding a place in a residential care home

6:30AM BST 14 May 2013

 

Researchers found older people are waiting on average three days longer in hospital for a residential home position than when the Coalition government took office.

Experts said this meant the NHS hospitals were funding a substantially higher proportion of social care costs because of “needless” waiting by patients.

Health officials are currently grappling with accident and emergency wards that are full to bursting, with part of the problem attributed to delays in discharging patients from hospitals.

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Modern life causing dementia earlier, study finds

May 13, 2013   Alzheimer’s, Carers, dementia, internet

Modern life is causing people to suffer dementia earlier than ever before, a study has found, with PCs, mobile phones, chemicals and electronic devices to blame.

Total neurological deaths in both men and women rose significantly in 16 of the countries covered by the research

6:55PM BST 12 May 2013

Researchers found a sharp rise in the deaths from dementia and other neurological disease in under-74s, and believe that the figures cannot be explained away by the fact we live longer.

Instead the “epidemic” is down to the environmental and social changes in the modern world, the authors claim.

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Family blame ‘bedroom tax’ pressure for woman’s death

May 12, 2013   Carers, ukcuts

Family blame ‘bedroom tax’ pressure for woman’s death

The family of a woman who blamed the Government for her death in a suicide note said she was struggling to cope with paying the so-called bedroom tax, the Sunday People has reported.

There have been protests against the Government's so-called "bedroom tax"

Stephanie Bottrill’s relatives told the paper she was worried about how she would afford the £20 extra a week for the two under-occupied bedrooms in her home – money she owed because of the Government’s spare room subsidy policy.

Ms Bottrill, who died on May 4, left a letter to her son Steven, which said: “Don’t blame yourself for me ending my life. The only people to blame are the Government,” the paper reports.

 
There have been protests against the Government’s “bedroom tax”. Credit: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire

He told the newspaper: “She was fine before the bedroom tax. It was dreamt up in London, by people in offices and big houses. They have no idea the effect it has on people like my mum.”

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