An increasingly influential advocate for older people is emerging from an unlikely direction: the billion-pound business that is synonymous with leisured middle-class retirement.
Ros Altmann is director-general of the Saga Group. She has been recruited specifically to be “the voice of the over-50s” and the past fortnight has been typically busy for Altmann, commenting on, among other things,
By Sophie Borland and Jason Groves
PUBLISHED: 21:01, 25 March 2012 | UPDATED: 23:24, 26 March 2012
David Cameron was yesterday forced to admit that NHS nurses lack compassion after being confronted by former Strictly Come Dancing judge Arlene Phillips.
The 68-year-old told the Prime Minister how she had witnessed nurses walking past dementia patients ‘as if they didn’t exist’ when visiting her mother-in-law in hospital over Christmas.
And she revealed how the 84-year-old, who does not suffer from dementia, had been kept on the same ward in Hereford Hospital as several Alzheimer’s patients, many of whom were ‘repeatedly calling out for nurses’.
Mrs Phillips, a supporter of the Alzheimer’s Society, who has spoken movingly in the past about her father’s battle with dementia, claimed ‘every nurse in that ward walked up and down as if they didn’t exist’.
Confronting Mr Cameron during a question and answer session at a conference in London yesterday, she asked: ‘How will you train nurses to care?’
Lucy Clapham Saturday, March 24, 2012 6:57 PM
The official launch of the Aylsham Care Trust (Act) Centre was dubbed a “dream come true” by the man who spearheaded the £1.2m project.
Rees Coghlan founded the charity in 1985 and has been pushing ever since to improve facilities for the town’s residents, particularly the elderly and disabled.
And his work of more than 25 years culminated today when the centre, on the St Michael’s Hospital site, was formally opened.
It will now provide a range of community services, including hosting regular lunch clubs, offer a space for groups to meet and hold training sessions for students from City College Norwich.
