Tag Archives: ukcuts

Poor hit hardest by UK govt. policies

May 13, 2012   Carers, disability, Older care, poverty
Carers feel forgotten by society 
The poorest households have been most affected by the soaring cost of living in Britain as they spend a higher proportion of their incomes to meet the problem of food and energy bills, warns a new research.

According to a study by Trades Union Congress (TUC), Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation for the poorest 10 percent of households in February was 4.1 percent, compared with 3.6 percent for middle-income families and 3.3 per cent for the richest 10 percent.

“People have been getting poorer every month for the last two years as high inflation, tax rises and the dire state of the economy take their toll on family budgets,” said TUC general secretary Brendan Barber.

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Son fears being trapped in 24-hr care for mum after service cuts

May 11, 2012   Carers, ukcuts

CUTS FEARS … Alan Blackett caring for his mother Edna.

Published on Friday 11 May 2012 17:00

A DEVOTED carer to his disabled mother fears he will be left ‘high and dry’ after he learned vital support was being withdrawn.

Alan Blackett, 35, looks after mum Edna, 68, 24 hours a day.

She suffers from chronic breathing problems, diabetes and a host of other physical problems which require full-time care.

Mr Blackett, of Redwell Lane, Marsden, said he is more than willing to help and ‘does it for the love’.

But now the only support he gets is about to be withdrawn.

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How the ‘perfect storm of cuts’ is shrinking one woman’s life choices

May 10, 2012   autism, Carers, dementia, ukcuts

Rose Fernandes’s council wants to reduce care for her autistic daughter and her mother with dementia, and a cap on housing benefit could force the family to live apart

 

Rose Fernandes with her daughter Crystal, who is autistic and faces having her time with a carer cut from nine hours a day to four hours a week. Photograph: Graeme Robertson

As politicians shrink the state, Rose Fernandes’s life choices dwindle. Her day is sandwiched between caring for her autistic 25-year-old daughter Crystal and her 83-year-old mother, Maria, who suffers from dementia. But since 2010, she has been caught in a whirlwind of cuts, reducing her life to a series of arguments – in and out of lawyers’ offices – to preserve her way of life.

It began two years ago when her local council in Brent, north-west London, said it wanted to reduce the number of hours it would pay a carer to look after her daughter from nine hours a day to just four hours a week. But Fernandes says the day-to-day care for Crystal is constant – she needs to be washed, dressed, fed, taken to the toilet and watched all the time because she is not aware of everyday dangers.

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