Category Archives: Older care

Five million elderly only have TV for company

November 22, 2012   Carers, Older care

Five million elderly only have TV for company: Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt

Five million elderly people only have television for company as they see friends and family less than once a month, the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said, as he announced new measures for councils to tackle the problem.

 

Research clearly shows that loneliness increases the risk of heart disease

By , Medical Editor

7:00AM GMT 22 Nov 2012

Surveys will be sent to elderly people and their carers asking them if they are lonely and feel socially isolated.

Councils can then offer services such as day centres and meals on wheels where necessary.

Esther Rantzen, chairman of The Silver Line, a new helpline to protect elderly people from abuse and neglect, combat loneliness and help them negotiate care services, said: “Some older people told me that they have nobody to speak to at all for weeks on end.”

Mr Hunt will also announce a £20m package that councils can bid for to pay for schemes to help vulnerable people keep warm and safe and prevent hospital admissions during the winter.

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Do elderly people really want to choose and manage their own care budgets?

November 20, 2012   Carers, Older care

The government’s so-called “personalisation'” policy affecting care means chaos and cuts for day centres – and it will send older people like me round the twist

The Great Croft day care centre in Camden, London.

The Great Croft day care centre in Camden, London. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian

Last week I went out and forgot that I’d left the dog’s rice cooking. Twice. Even though I’d reminded myself, out loud, just before leaving, to turn the gas off.

Help! Soon I’ll be needing assistance; someone popping in to help me organise my life and check that I’m not totally farmisht and storing my dinners in the broom cupboard, like Auntie used to do.

There will be some pretty complex organising needed, what with the government’s “personalisation” fad, AKA “sort–it–out–yourselves-you’re-nearly-dead–anyway-what-do-we-care?” Council will give me a weekly budget, then I can choose to pay a carer, which makes me an employer, who must pay national insurance; or go to a day centre, which will charge me a daily rate, once it has spent ages working one out. This is what the lovely Great Croft day centre in Camden has had to faff about doing. To help the old persons to decide, it must pay a seven-hour-a-week co-ordinator to sort out 70 volunteers/befrienders (usually retired professionals), who need training, CRB checks, and to be sensitively matched up with, and sent out to, the elderly people, who are cracking up trying to work out what they want, how much they’ve got, whether their families or the local post office are nicking their money (yes, it does happen), and what the hell personalisation means.

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Cold, lonely winter may cost 25,000 old people their lives

November 19, 2012   Carers, family, fuel poverty, Older care

“Small things and a friendly face make all the difference to a family carer.”

Older people in the West Country are becoming increasingly isolated as neighbours fail to take notice of their basic needs.

According to a new report from the charity Age UK, one in four people aged 65 or more in the South West are not getting any help, support or companionship from people on their doorstep.

  1. OAP

“It is a sad fact of life,” said Tom Williams, chairman of a Pensioners and 50-Plus Action Group in the region. “Times have changed and this has been happening more and more over the years. People are busy with their own lives and they don’t pop into each others houses any more.

He added: “We all know individuals who have children who live abroad, in America and Australia, and the chances are they aren’t coming back. These people are all right when they are living as a couple, but when one dies the survivor tends to get very lonely. It’s a real problem, but it’s hard to know what to do.”

Mr Williams, who is a keen advocate of over-50s getting more involved in their community, said older people were sometimes guilty of apathy themselves.

“It goes both ways. Older people need to get out more and be more vocal as well.”

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