Category Archives: Older care
What a way to treat the widow of one of our greatest war heroes
Douglas Bader’s anguished family reveal the shocking neglect his wife Joan has suffered in TWO care homes
- Joan Bader has been in four age homes
- One failed to give her medical attention when she suffered stroke
- Another left her in soaked sheets
- Her daughter Wendy is appalled by level of care in some homes
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Walking into her elderly mother’s care home, Wendy McCleave was shocked by the sight that confronted her. It had been a matter of days since she had last visited, yet in that time her mother’s condition had deteriorated horrifically.
Sunken-eyed, with a livid bruise on her temple, she seemed unable to speak or swallow.
‘I thought she was dying,’ Wendy recalls. ‘It was the most horrendous shock.’
In fact, her mother Joan, the widow of Sir Douglas Bader, Britain’s most famous wartime pilot whose story was told in the film Reach For The Sky, had suffered a stroke. Yet no one at her residential care home had taken action, despite the attempts by one nurse, Adeline Dalley, to seek medical treatment.
Zest for life: Joan with war hero Douglas Bader on their wedding day
Older cancer patients ‘should not be written off’
24 January 2014 Last updated at 10:34
Older cancer patients should not be “written off” as too old for treatment, a charity has warned.
Macmillan Cancer Support said decisions on care should be made based on a patient’s fitness, not their age.
It cited data which suggests 130,000 people over 65 diagnosed with cancer between 1991-2010 survived for more than 10 years.
NHS England acknowledged that it needed to deliver better services to people in the over-65 age group.
Loneliness and periods of crisis ‘affect many in UK
Many people feared not being able to get around easily
20 January 2014 Last updated at 01:45
By Hannah Richardson BBC News education reporter
As many as a third of British adults feel they have no-one to turn to in a crisis, a survey has suggested.Nearly three-quarters of those questioned online for the Red Cross said they had already been through a period of crisis in their lives.
And 37% thought they could suffer one again within the next five years.
The main worries for people as they get older were cited as being the loss of independence and not being able to cope on their own.
About a quarter of the 2,043 people surveyed were concerned they would not be able to get around in the same way, and would be lonely and isolated.
‘Lasting impact’
A significant minority, about one in eight, said they felt those in the UK did not suffer crises in the same way as people in other countries.
The charity, which offers help and support in the UK as well as abroad, said support for the elderly would become “more vital” with an ageing population, shrinking budgets and health and social care services “struggling to meet demand”.
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