Tag Archives: Older care

Plan to force elderly to use internet to access Government services is a breach of ‘OAP human rights’

June 25, 2014   Carers, internet, Older care

 Do you believe one-off computer courses would be enough for you to feel comfortable accessing services online?

By Grimsby Telegraph  |  Posted: June 24, 2014

LEARNING: Do you believe one-off computer courses would be enough for you to feel comfortable accessing services online?

 A PENSIONER from Grimsby says it is “disgusting” that many Government services will soon only be available online.

Barbara Cowper, 79, says cabinet office minister Francis Maude’s opinion that older people must start using the internet to access public services is a breach of “OAP human rights”.

The Government says millions of pounds can be saved by moving services so that they are solely online and that getting to grips with the interest is a “better thing for people’s lives”.

But Mrs Cowper, who is a retired secretary and knows how to use a computer, disagrees.

She said: “It is infuriating that older people are being given no say over whether they actually want to use the internet or not.

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A £10 charge to visit a GP would be just the start of a slippery slope for the NHS

June 22, 2014   Carers, disability, Featured Article, health, mental health

We either let our NHS be trashed by the privatisers and cutters, or we defend a properly funded, publicly run, universal system that is free at the point of use

A GP with a patient. ‘This ideological assault is being accompanied by an actual attempt to dismantle and privatise the NHS.’ Photograph: David Sillitoe for the Guardian

A slow hand clap for Andy McGovern, a London hospital nurse who has proposed that the Royal College of Nursing supports a £10 charge to visit a GP. On its own terms, the proposal is an unacceptable assault on the very foundations of the NHS: that it is free at the point of use. But the suggestion is so menacing because of where it originates from. The many enemies of the NHS – who have to be diplomatic, knowing that the NHS “is the closest the English have to a religion”, as Nigel Lawson once put it – will rejoice. “Aha!” they will think. “Now even the nurses are debating NHS charges, we have been given the political cover we need!”

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How 10,000 families are paying massive care home bills they don’t need to

June 14, 2014   Carers, Featured Article, Older care

… and how to make sure it doesn’t happen to you

By Tom Rawstorne

Published: 23:12, 13 June 2014 | Updated: 00:25, 14 June 2014

As a leading theatre director, 74-year-old Glen Walford has spent her long working life touring the world. But whenever she returned to Britain, she always knew she had a home — the pretty red-brick house in the Worcestershire countryside where she grew up.

Her childhood bedroom was still there, as well as her office and outbuildings filled with her belongings.

But when Miss Walford’s elderly mother, Mary, broke her hip in 2006 and had to go into a care home, the local council ruled that Miss Walford was only an infrequent visitor to the property — and therefore the house belonged exclusively to her mother, who would have to sell it to pay for her care fees.

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