Tag Archives: Older care
Fourteen ways councils can help combat loneliness
1) Councils need to team up with partners to combat loneliness; they cannot go it alone
We know that loneliness can harm a person’s mental and physical health. Communities with high levels of social capital have better results in health and education attainment and can enjoy greater levels of social cohesion. For these reasons (among others), loneliness needs to be a key priority for councils.
But loneliness is multifaceted, so local authorities cannot do this alone. It will be vital for councils to work in partnership with community groups, local faith groups, the voluntary sector and the private sector. Local knowledge and local relationships will be critical to offer the personal approach required to support those suffering from loneliness.
New BBC series shows the increasing difficulties in caring for older people
Protecting our Parents reveals multiple issues with the fragmented systems of health and social care
Time – or rather money – is running out for 83-year-old Betty in the temporary care home placement where she’s spent a few weeks recuperating after a fall.
This resulted in her being admitted to Heartlands hospital in Birmingham, but she now urgently wants to go home. Her niece Rhonda watches as a social worker tries to persuade Betty to agree to the council clearing her house of some of the possessions she’s built up over decades. These will now, it’s suggested, prove a health and safety hazard when she moves back in, increasing her risk of another fall.
‘I cut Mum’s care home fees by £15,000 a year’
A Telegraph reader challenged her mother’s care home and it agreed to cut its fees by £289 per week. Here is how you can do the same
If you challenge the costs of a care home you may just land yourself – or the family member who is paying – a substantial discount. That is what happened to Susan Stressing, who, having read a report in The Telegraph in January, decided to make inquiries about the care home bill she was paying for her mother, Kathleen Willett.
Mrs Willett’s bill has now been reduced by £289 a week. That equates to a saving of more than £15,000 a year.
The case emerges as the cost of care homes continues to rise steeply, and as criticism grows of the Government’s plans to reform care funding. Legislation to introduce a “lifetime care fees cap”, which would limit care costs paid by any individual to £72,000, is going through Parliament now. It is supposed to become effective next year. The cap excludes accommodation and other costs, and so could still see people paying well over the proposed £72,000 limit.
