Tag Archives: Older care

‘Wealth of the Web’ Report Launched

27 January 2014

Age UK London Calls for More to be Done to Help Get Older Londoners Online

Age UK London has today launched a report outlining recommendations for getting more of the 2.1 million older people in London online.

78% of Londoners aged over 75 are not online and a total of 661,000 people over the age of 55 in London have never used the internet; Wealth of the Web: Broadening Horizons Online tackles the issue of how to decrease these figures. Specific recommendations are made for older people themselves, the Age UK London Network, voluntary sector organisations, regional and local government, funders and those in the private sector.

The report looks at the obstacles to older people being online, which range from lack of interest to financial cost and lack of training and support as well as the drivers behind getting older people online which include family support and specific interests and hobbies.

What a way to treat the widow of one of our greatest war heroes

Douglas Bader’s anguished family reveal the shocking neglect his wife Joan has suffered in TWO care homes

  • Joan Bader has been in four age homes
  • One failed to give her medical attention when she suffered stroke
  • Another left her in soaked sheets
  • Her daughter Wendy is appalled by level of care in some homes

By Kathryn Knight

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Walking into her elderly mother’s care home, Wendy McCleave was shocked by the sight that confronted her. It had been a matter of days since she had last visited, yet in that time her mother’s condition had deteriorated horrifically.

Sunken-eyed, with a livid bruise on her temple, she seemed unable to speak or swallow.

‘I thought she was dying,’ Wendy recalls. ‘It was the most horrendous shock.’

In fact, her mother Joan, the widow of Sir Douglas Bader, Britain’s most famous wartime pilot whose story was told in the film Reach For The Sky, had suffered a stroke. Yet no one at her residential care home had taken action, despite the attempts by one nurse, Adeline Dalley, to seek medical treatment.   

Zest for life: Joan with war hero Douglas Bader on their wedding day

Zest for life: Joan with war hero Douglas Bader on their wedding day

Older cancer patients ‘should not be written off’

Older cancer patients should not be “written off” as too old for treatment, a charity has warned.

Macmillan Cancer Support said decisions on care should be made based on a patient’s fitness, not their age.

It cited data which suggests 130,000 people over 65 diagnosed with cancer between 1991-2010 survived for more than 10 years.

NHS England acknowledged that it needed to deliver better services to people in the over-65 age group.