The wonders of internet shopping…

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Dr Gillian Granville | Leave a comment

I have been thinking recently that I would find it hard to imagine a world where the internet didn’t exist. At the very least, how would I book my holidays and theatre tickets and take advantage of those special deals on a well-known book site? So it’s really interesting to be evaluating Age UK London’s digital inclusion project, ‘MiCommunity’, because many of the older people in London who have signed up for the project have never even turned on a computer.

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Make older people a Mayoral priority!

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Gordon Deuchars | Leave a comment

Three months today, on 3 May 2012, up to two million Londoners aged 50+ will cast their votes in the Mayor of London and London Assembly elections. We know that older people are more likely to vote in elections than other age groups. The Mayor plays a key role in running London and many of his/her areas of responsibility can have a direct effect on older people’s lives and wellbeing.

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Don’t cut care in London!

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Gordon Deuchars | Leave a comment

It’s time to say “No” to any more cuts to older people’s social care services. Local authorities need to make spending cuts from somewhere, but maintaining frontline older people’s services needs to be a priority in 2012-13. There is no slack in the system, many older people already get pooor quality care services and any further cuts could harm vulnerable older people.

That’s what Age UK London and Greater London Forum for Older People have found anyway. We have just launched our research report, ‘Don’t cut care in London’, looking at the impact of the cuts so far and the possible impact in the future. You can download our report from www.ageuk.org.uk/london

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The scandal of older people’s “care”

Posted on November 25, 2011 by Brenda Bond | Leave a comment

The EHRC has published a shocking report highlighting yet another area of neglect and cuts in levels of service. This time it’s homecare, and reliable reports of people being left in wet and soiled beds for hours on end, waiting for a care worker to arrive and help them – often with just 15 minutes allocated for the work.

The temptation is to blame the care worker, who is surely recruited, trained and paid to ”care” . I have commented, raised concerns, blogged and generally got on my soap box about these issues many times. There are several pertinent points to make:

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The cold kills

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Brenda Bond | Leave a comment

According to the BBC News, winter weather alerts aimed at helping vulnerable people during cold snaps are to be introduced in England:

“Under the new arrangements, the Met will issue alerts depending on the severity of the conditions. In total, there will be four alerts, each of which will ask local agencies, including NHS trusts and councils, to carry out certain duties. For example, at level three, which would have been reached last winter, health and social care staff should consider daily visits to the most vulnerable.”

Can someone tell me please, where the people and money are going to come from for daily visits to the most vulnerable?

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Let’s challenge the stereotype of the older slacker

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Sam Mauger | 1 Comment

I read with enormous concern the front page media headline last week talking about  ‘Older Slackers’. I wonder if the media knows the lengths that people over 50 have to go through to even get a CV looked at, let alone an interview, training or promotion prospects.

Many people will look at the headline and form an opinion without ever reading the content.
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Health records and online access

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Brenda Bond | 2 Comments

A couple of us attended a meeting the other day in which one of the presentations promoted a pilot scheme to give people access to their GP records online. It sounded great… until we started to think through the potential for abuse. Our questions about security were acknowledged as valid, especially in light of recent failures in the massive NHS IT system developments. But there had clearly been little thought about issues closer to home.

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Home is where the heart is . . .

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Paul Goulden | 1 Comment

The news last Wednesday featured a report by the Intergenerational Foundation on what they call “house hoarding” – highlighting the housing problems faced by young people. They suggest that older people who stay in their family home are creating a housing crisis and that they should be encouraged to downsize by being given tax breaks (for example on Stamp Duty). There have also been comments on the web about this being unfair on younger people, because these home owners had it easy when the bought their properties.

I’m not sure they have really thought this one through . . .

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Retire? You must be joking . . .

Posted on September 20, 2011 by Paul Goulden | Leave a comment

Sad news in the Sunday papers at the weekend – Ronan O’Gara will be retiring from international rugby after the World Cup. Fresh from the first major upset of the tournament when Ireland stuffed Australia, this is huge news (so for those of you who think rugby is a poor relation to football or worse “just another sport” you may go to paragraph 3).

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Update on learning disability and dementia

Posted on September 19, 2011 by Brenda Bond | Leave a comment

I was chuffed recently to discover that people read and appreciate my blogs on this site – so I’m inspired to do an update of a subject I spoke about in July. The fact is that people with learning disabilities are living longer but sadly many are developing dementia as they age – as many as 54 per cent of people with Downs aged 60-65 have dementia. So I started asking questions about social care and health preparations for this “new” client group.

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