Tag Archives: carers

Fourteen ways councils can help combat loneliness

Tackling loneliness is a local government priority. Here’s some expert advice on how councils can address it

 

Loneliness can harm physical and mental health and addressing it needs to be a priority for councils.

1) Councils need to team up with partners to combat loneliness; they cannot go it alone

We know that loneliness can harm a person’s mental and physical health. Communities with high levels of social capital have better results in health and education attainment and can enjoy greater levels of social cohesion. For these reasons (among others), loneliness needs to be a key priority for councils.

But loneliness is multifaceted, so local authorities cannot do this alone. It will be vital for councils to work in partnership with community groups, local faith groups, the voluntary sector and the private sector. Local knowledge and local relationships will be critical to offer the personal approach required to support those suffering from loneliness.

New BBC series shows the increasing difficulties in caring for older people

Protecting our Parents reveals multiple issues with the fragmented systems of health and social care

 

A new programme will ask how we are going to care for older people as numbers continue to rise.

 

Time – or rather money – is running out for 83-year-old Betty in the temporary care home placement where she’s spent a few weeks recuperating after a fall.

This resulted in her being admitted to Heartlands hospital in Birmingham, but she now urgently wants to go home. Her niece Rhonda watches as a social worker tries to persuade Betty to agree to the council clearing her house of some of the possessions she’s built up over decades. These will now, it’s suggested, prove a health and safety hazard when she moves back in, increasing her risk of another fall.

NHS Harrow Clinical Commissioning Group offers grants to help carers

We want carers to have better support

Two grants of up to £40,000 have been made available for voluntary organisations which support unpaid carers in the borough.

NHS Harrow Clinical Commissioning Group is offering the one off grants to voluntary and community organisations supporting carers in Harrow.