Tag Archives: depression

Old people need to see their family three times a week

October 6, 2015   Carers, Depression, family, Featured Article, Older care

Why just emailing elderly relatives can double risk of depression

       Study is thought to be the first to examine the impact of different            types of social contact on the elderly

  • It also highlights just how important it is to spend time with our older generation – among whom th
  • Study is thought to be the first to examine the impact of different types of social contact on the elderly
  • There is said to be an ‘epidemic’ of loneliness
  • Speaking on the phone or being contacted online was not enough to replace seeing elderly face-to-face 
  • Those forms of contact did nothing to cut depression risk, experts say 

By Colin Fernandez, Science Correspondent For The Daily Mail

Published: 00:09, 6 October 2015 | Updated: 06:19, 6 October 2015

Families should visit their older relatives three times a week to help prevent them from becoming depressed, experts say.

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Carers 'worried about more welfare cuts' charity warns

May 19, 2015   Carers, Depression, Featured Article, mental health, ukcuts

Around half of carers are struggling to make ends meet and worried about how further cuts to welfare will impact them, a charity has warned.

Carers UK said it was calling on the Government to help the millions of carers who provide vital help to others by providing them with better financial support.

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Norfolk and Suffolk mental health Skype ‘outsourcing’ causes concern

January 31, 2015   Carers, Depression, Featured Article, hospital, mental health, Norfolk

By Nic Rigby BBC News

The Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust manages mental health wards at Hellesdon Hospital near Norwich, and around the counties

A health trust’s proposal to help treat patients with depression by using “staff from lower wage countries” via Skype showed a lack of understanding of mental health care, say campaigners.

The idea was put forward in a report to the government by the mental health trust for Norfolk and Suffolk.

Unison, which represents mental health staff, said the plan failed to show an understanding of mental health care.

A trust spokesman said the proposal was looked at but has been dismissed.

The plan, drawn up towards the end of last summer, was contained in a successful application to the government by the Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust (NSFT) to fund consultants to look into new ways of running the trust.

Emma Corlett, of Unison, criticised the suggestion that patients with depression could be helped by staff from low-wage countries via Skype

One option could see the NSFT become a mutual – a firm owned by its workers, as is the case with retailer John Lewis.

The report said the use of staff from outside the UK to help prevent depression and psychosis was a “new approach” to be explored.

Emma Corlett, spokeswoman for Unison at the trust, said: “Our view of the report is that it shows whoever did the application did not have a very clear understanding of the work frontline staff do or the way face-to-face therapy works.

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