Tag Archives: health

Now is the time to create a combined health and social care system

4th September 2014

Merging two leaky buckets does not provide a watertight solution.

NHS England’s chief executive, Simon Stevens, recently told the Health Select Committee that merging two leaky buckets does not provide a watertight solution. It is for this reason that the growing problems in the NHS and social care cannot be solved by the Better Care Fund or any of the other short-term solutions on offer. Nothing less than a fundamental reform of the funding of health and social care services and citizens’ entitlements to publicly funded support is required to address these problems.

The torment of trying to be a good granny AND a dutiful daughter

Top author Rosie Staal says women like her are in despair

  • 92-year-old mother Jean is beset by Alzheimer’s, breast cancer, hearing loss and poor sight 
  • Rosie longs to spend more time with grandsons Joe, 5 and Zach, 3, and her two-year-old granddaughter Poppy
  • Women over 60 make up nearly a third of all hospital admissions for anxiety – juggling caring for elderly parents, grandchildren and ageing or ill partners
  • Rosie worries she is also neglecting her husband David 

By Rosie Staal

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On the train heading home to Dorset from London last week, I leaned my head against the cold window, closed my eyes and savoured a rare moment to draw breath.

After spending three days with my grandsons Joe, five, and Zach, three, I could still hear their joyful voices in my ears and feel their trusting little hands in mine.

Turning my back as they wave goodbye haunts me after every visit, causing a physical jolt to my heart.

Loneliness becoming a modern epidemic

Family carers can feel lonely?

You’re not alone – more and more people are suffering loneliness. Lisa Salmon reports on a growing and worrying problem

WE ALL have days when we feel slightly alone. Our friends are busy, the kids are away, nobody’s responding to your texts or calls. But this is very different to feeling deeply, inconsolably lonely. Loneliness is a growing problem, in a modern society that spreads people further and further from their family roots and compels them more and more to interact with technology rather than real people.