Category Archives: Older care

Suffolk: New ways of delivering care on the way

September 5, 2013   Carers, Older care, ukcuts

Suffolk: New ways of delivering care on the way

Suffolk Family Carers chief executive Jacqui Martin Suffolk Family Carers chief executive Jacqui Martin

Thursday, September 5, 2013
9:00 AM

Home care for frail people across Suffolk could get a radical shake-up after a county-wide consultation over the next few months.

Meals on Wheels changes

The county is also looking at how it provides community meals services from September next year.

At present it provides 219,000 hot meals to about 725 customers a year. The cost of the meals is £1.4 million, and the £5.50 cost of the meals brings in £1.2 million – meaning the cost to the council is just over £200,000 a year.

About half of the meals have to be put on plates for the customer, 35% require diabetic diets, and 15% need “modified texture diets.”

Dr Murray said the council would be looking at how these meals were delivered – for those who were able to cope it might be better to deliver frozen meals that could be microwaved when needed. The cost of those is £3.20 each.

However because an increasing number of customers were very frail, that might not be a solution for many of those requiring the service.

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Britain has become a ‘neglectful society’, warns care minister

September 4, 2013   Carers, Older care, ukcuts

The demands of modern life have turned Britain into a “neglectful society” in which has become the norm for older people to be left isolated, a minister has warned.

Care cap will only help small minority of elderly, officials admit

Norman Lamb: we have become a neglectful society Photo: Alban Donohoe

By , Social Affairs Editor

8:00AM BST 04 Sep 2013

Norman Lamb, the care minister, said that elderly people are being starved of basic kindness and companionship because of extended family networks, which once underpinned society, have been increasingly dispersed.

Mr Lamb, who is spearheading wide-ranging reforms to the care system, said state intervention would not in itself be enough provide people with the “good life” in their final years unless people “step up” and play a greater part.

Addressing a conference organised by the Alzheimer’s Society in London, he also acknowledged that the home-care system is now so starved of cash that increasingly depends on “exploiting” low-paid carers, often immigrant workers, who “subsidise” their work from their own pocket.

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Battle launched to end isolation of rural elderly

September 3, 2013   Carers, Older care, Social care

Facing the problem of social isolation among the elderly in parts of rural North Yorkshire

Steps being taken to try to tackle the problem of social isolation among the elderly in parts of rural North Yorkshire are to be discussed by health chiefs at a meeting this week.

The county has a large number of older people living in the county with an estimated 20.3 per cent of the population of the county aged 65 or over in 2010, compared with a national average of 16.5 per cent.

In Harrogate and its surrounding rural district, health bosses say 27 per cent of the population is aged 60 and over compared to the national average of 22.4 per cent. With figures for the over-65s in this part of the county set to rise by 19 per cent by 2021, health chiefs will meet this week to discuss a project that aims to tackle the issue.

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