Category Archives: Carers

Carers’ needs part of bill to ‘transform’ social care

January 29, 2013   Carers, Older care, Wales
29 January 2013 Last updated at 08:27

Carers’ needs part of bill to ‘transform’ social care

Older person An aging population is putting pressure on the social care system

The Welsh government is publishing legislation which will see carers getting the same legal rights to support as the people they look after.

The Social Services Bill will widen the range of people and organisations delivering social services.

It aims to give those in need of support greater choice and more control over the help they receive.

Ministers say it will also give people a say over the care they receive, and control over care budgets.

Under the bill, social workers will have new powers to enter homes and speak to vulnerable adults.

Around 150,000 people a year receive social care in Wales.

Read More

Social care is bearing the brunt of council cuts

January 29, 2013   Carers, disability, ukcuts

Statistical manipulation disguises the fact that disabled people are being hit the hardest by cuts to benefits and services

 

Sally Bercow (centre) and Jane Asher (left) join protesters on the Hardest Hit march against cuts to disability benefits and services.

One of the extraordinary features of the cuts programme has been the fate of social care. At the same time as announcing the deepest cuts in public expenditure since the creation of the welfare state, there have been several pronouncements about extra funding for social care and how any failure to safeguard services for disabled children, adults or older people would be because of failings in local government.

For instance, the 2010 comprehensive spending review declared that there would be “£2bn a year of additional funding by 2014-15 to support social care”. However, a closer examination of these figures shows it was merely a statistical manipulation, achieved by closing one small funding stream, restarting it and then publishing the cumulative figure for a five-year period. The truth is very different.

Read More

Local councillor said Dean’s home care was a ‘shambles’

January 28, 2013   Carers, disability, Scotland

Local councillor carpeted after slamming own social work department over disabled son’s care services on Facebook

THOMAS COCHRANE, who is SNP councillor for Shotts, took to Facebook to vent his fury over home care services provided for his son Dean, who suffers from quadriplegic cerebral palsy.

Thomas said Dean’s home care was a ‘shambles’
Thomas said Dean’s home care was a ‘shambles’
David Johnstone

A COUNCILLOR has been carpeted for branding his own social work department a joke on Facebook.

Thomas Cochrane went on the social networking site to vent his fury over home care services provided for his severely disabled son Dean.

The widower complained that North Lanarkshire social work officials failed to inform him that they had either cancelled or changed the times of home visits for 11-year-old Dean.

Thomas posted on Facebook: “Social work home care is an absolute joke.

Read More