Tag Archives: mental health
Cuts in services leave dementia victims in fear
Dementia victims face crime wave on doorstep
A LOOMING £1bn cash crisis could leave dementia sufferers at greater threat from rogue traders who are exploiting cutbacks in social services to target some of the most vulnerable members of society.
Trading standards officers in Yorkshire have warned the rising numbers of pensioners who are suffering from mental illness are being placed at increased risk as care professionals are no longer available to ward off the advances of doorstep criminals.
The Alzheimer’s Society claims a £1bn funding gap is looming in social care nationally, as local authorities are forced to strip back resources to cope with the Government’s austerity measures. North Yorkshire County Council alone is faced with making savings of more than £90m across all its departments, and finance directors have warned front-line services including social care will be hit.
Many dementia sufferers will be left with a reduced level of care in their own homes, prompting fears they will be targeted by organised gangs of criminals who are travelling to the region to prey on the elderly.
You have to raise your voice to get mental health issues on the agenda
It’s time to talk about mental health
Angela McNab, chief executive of one of England’s larger mental health trusts, explains how listening to patients has led to improvements
In government, as in society, attitudes tend to change gradually, so health minister Norman Lamb’s commitment to “prioritising mental health like never before, making sure that it sits on par with physical health” has come as a welcome step change to mental health professionals.
Although one in four people in the UK will have mental health problems at some point in their lives, mental health services suffer institutional disadvantage compared to physical health services; press coverage of mental health is scant; and jokes or insulting language about mental illness are common.
When the previous government introduced major policies on payment by results, waiting times and patient choice, it excluded mental health and, despite considerable investment in the NHS overall, in the early 1990s spending on mental health declined.
Peer support for service users like Chill4us is for Carers
Why providers should invest in peer support for service users
A group of charitable providers have set up an independent organisation to provide peer support to service users. This approach can help improve service quality, efficiency and flexibility, say Bernd Sass and Sue Taylor.
Providers have long been told of the need to personalise their services and use any such redesign as an opportunity to involve and empower people with support needs. At the same time ‘lived experience’ has been seen as the answer to many problems in access to services and in achieving lasting and positive health and independent living outcomes, not to mention productivity gains. Yet little concrete action has followed from either providers or commissioners to bring the multiple positive effects of peer support to fruition.
Now a consortium of charities in the North East has set up an independent user-led organisation for disabled people in order to change this. Peer Support North East has been established as a community interest company by Age UK, Alzheimer’s Society, Your Voice Counts, Mental Health Matters and Sight Service Gateshead.
It now has 20 mentors who are supporting 350 of their peers a month, with disabled and older people supporting each other across age ranges and impairment groups, cutting across the boundaries between services.
