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Frail Elderley & Disabled Face Cuts in Essential Service

 
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Clive55



Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 1336

PostPosted: Sun Oct 31, 2010 12:19 pm    Post subject: Frail Elderley & Disabled Face Cuts in Essential Service Reply with quote

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/oct/30/care-elderly-disabled-council-cuts
The cuts by Osbourne & the Rodent will result in the withdrawell of services including personal care according to The Local Government Association

Elderly people with conditions such as dementia, Parkinson's and diabetes face losing support in their homes in some areas even if they are unable to "carry out the majority of personal care or domestic routines", such as getting dressed and maintaining personal hygiene.

Andrew Harrop, director of policy and public affairs for Age UK, said that if councils tightened the eligibility criteria to exclude those whose need for care was currently classified as "substantial" it would mean no one living in their own home would be able to access such help: "[Care] would only be for those so fragile they are in a residential home."

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This is a terrifying prospect
Only someone who declares himself proud to be called a Rodent could think this is acceptable.
Absolutely appalling & inhumane. But by his own admission Danny is a Rodent & Osbourne something very similar.
Whatever ones political position, read the article closely & consider the appalling consequences


Last edited by Clive55 on Sun Oct 31, 2010 12:38 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Clive55



Joined: 08 Dec 2006
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 31, 2010 12:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think this issue is more alarming than the Housing Benefit issue. It directly endangers the well being & even lives of many frail elderly & disabled people
I hope the government think again about them. It is just not acceptable in a civilised society
And if it goes ahead it will force more elderly people into Care Homes which will be alot more costly for the tax & rate payer as well as being detrimental to the lives of many people
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ColinB
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 31, 2010 1:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's OK Clive. Call Me Dave has assured us that as we're all in this together, we'll all come out of the distant tunnel intact. It's good to know that we're all equal - even though, as George Orwell once reminded us, some are more equal than others. Thatcherism never died, it just rested for a while.

Current political ideology determines that those who are least able to fight back should be attacked first, which thus requires that the rest of us should fight - and fight hard - on their behalf!

My 80-year-old mother-in-law lives in sheltered housing and is physically frail (severe osteoporosis and respiratory problems) with another of our relatives experiencing the early stages of dementia. Both are worried for their futures - and rightly so. And, of course, all this places an ever-increasing burden on family carers. Do the Old Etonians care? Do they hell!

It's not right. It just isn't right.
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Clive55



Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 1336

PostPosted: Sun Oct 31, 2010 2:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You are right, Colin. It is a very worrying time, but of course not so worrying for the multi millionaires in the cabinet.
I retired from work in June to look after my mother who is in her eightees & very frail. She has had carers comming in for some years as she needs alot of support.
I could manage most things now that I have left work to care for her, but she will still need carers in the morning as it needs two people to support her for a thorough wash & support in the morning.
I can see this as being a false economy. Many people need carers comming in for basic support. If this support is withdrawn it will mean either a relative leaving work to become a carer, meaning another person not paying tax or National insurance or else the person would need to go into a care home which again will be more expensive
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Rachel
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 31, 2010 7:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The cuts don’t mean that those services you mention will be removed at all, the decision to remove a service is down to your local authority – they may have to make some tough choices about how they spend their cash but THEY will decide which services to keep and which ones to cut. Would you rather lose your library and the upkeep of your local park instead of cutting care for the elderly? Could the recently retired, help to look after the park- save the local authority some cash to spend on important stuff. There’s loads of things your local authority pays for with your money – you may expect labour controlled authorities to cut care for the elderly because that is what they want you to think the Government is making them to do- but it isn’t!
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Clive55



Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 1336

PostPosted: Sun Oct 31, 2010 8:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rachel wrote:
The cuts don’t mean that those services you mention will be removed at all, the decision to remove a service is down to your local authority – they may have to make some tough choices about how they spend their cash but THEY will decide which services to keep and which ones to cut. Would you rather lose your library and the upkeep of your local park instead of cutting care for the elderly? Could the recently retired, help to look after the park- save the local authority some cash to spend on important stuff. There’s loads of things your local authority pays for with your money – you may expect labour controlled authorities to cut care for the elderly because that is what they want you to think the Government is making them to do- but it isn’t!

That is the big joke in this thing. Many local TORY councillors are absolutely livid at this government.The govt cut the funding of local authorities, remove ringfences & then make out it is the local councils who are the bad guys
This kind of DIRTY polotics is why local TORY LIB DEM Councillors HATE this government far more than they did Labour.
London Mayor Boris Johnson is another who is privately fumming at the government decisions because they have put him in the AWFUL position of letting down the people of London he is trying his best to serve
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ColinB
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 31, 2010 9:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rachel wrote:
The cuts don’t mean that those services you mention will be removed at all, the decision to remove a service is down to your local authority – they may have to make some tough choices about how they spend their cash but THEY will decide which services to keep and which ones to cut. Would you rather lose your library and the upkeep of your local park instead of cutting care for the elderly? Could the recently retired, help to look after the park- save the local authority some cash to spend on important stuff. There’s loads of things your local authority pays for with your money – you may expect labour controlled authorities to cut care for the elderly because that is what they want you to think the Government is making them to do- but it isn’t!


When the local authority is told by central government to cut its total budget by 30%, then the local authority is forced to act accordingly without further reference to the local electorate. I can't really see how such a dictat can leave much scope for local democracy.

I always assumed that local people elected local people to represent them on local authorities in order to tackle local issues. Obviously I was wrong!

And another thing........... why is it that HMRC will be chasing businesses even harder than normal for taxes owed (or assumed to be owed even when they aren't!) when the attitude to Vodafone is "It's OK. Don't worry about the £6billion owed. We'll forget about it for now".

The whole basis for this "economic policy" is idealogical; the right-wing establishment is pulling Cameron's strings and he's just doing what he's told - as are his fellow Eton chums.
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Rachel
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 31, 2010 10:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If more people looked after their parents themselves then maybe there’d be enough cash to look after those elderly folk whom don’t have any family. I think the idea that we can, and are even encouraged to package our parents off to somewhere more convenient and less messy to die, so we can do as we please, is fundamentally wrong.

Colin, you know that isn't how it works. Take it on the chin big guy, roll your sleeves up and get on with it. People at our level are never going to come out on top- we just do what we can in the waking hours.
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Clive55



Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 1336

PostPosted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 9:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rachel wrote:
If more people looked after their parents themselves then maybe there’d be enough cash to look after those elderly folk whom don’t have any family. I think the idea that we can, and are even encouraged to package our parents off to somewhere more convenient and less messy to die, so we can do as we please, is fundamentally wrong.

Colin, you know that isn't how it works. Take it on the chin big guy, roll your sleeves up and get on with it. People at our level are never going to come out on top- we just do what we can in the waking hours.

Rachel, I am one of those people who DOES look after my mum myself. I needed carers to come in during the day while I was at work but I kept my mum at home & was prepared to look after her myself
In June I left my job so I could look after her full time. But my mothers physical condition is such that in the mornings she needs TWO carers to support her.
I am savin g the local council a huge amount of money by caring for my mum in her own home. But to do so I do need a certain amount of support as described.
It is precisely this support that the government is planning to take away.
David Cameron acknowlwdged the huge amount of money carers are saving the nation. But it is those very carers and the people they care for who are now under threat by this governments actions.
The government needs to think hard about this barbarism. If they go ahead with this it will mean many elderly & disabled people will have to go into care homes which will be hugely more expensive in the long run
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ColinB
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 10:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rachel wrote:
If more people looked after their parents themselves then maybe there’d be enough cash to look after those elderly folk whom don’t have any family. I think the idea that we can, and are even encouraged to package our parents off to somewhere more convenient and less messy to die, so we can do as we please, is fundamentally wrong.


Rachel, lots and lots of people do look after their parents themselves and struggle hard to do so. A friend of mine recently nursed her mother for the last three months of her life (suffering from alzheimer's) whilst trying to run a business. Private care cost her £6,000 per month for which she had to re-mortgage her house. That simply isn't right - especially since her mother paid her state dues all her life. It'll continue only if we allow it.

Rachel wrote:
Colin, you know that isn't how it works. Take it on the chin big guy, roll your sleeves up and get on with it. People at our level are never going to come out on top- we just do what we can in the waking hours.


People in my family - including my near-penniless grandmother in Devonport who had to pay a doctor 2/6d before he would attend to her 18-year-old daughter dying of TB - took action to support Nye Bevan in his campaign to establish a fair-for-all National Health Service. Left to the Tories it would never have happened. We can sit around and "take it on the chin" or we can fight for what we know is right.

I prefer to do the latter. Cameron's "Big Society" is a smokescreen. Be warned, folks.
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Rachel
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 11:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It’s quite refreshing to hear that you care for your parents, Clive, I’m in the same boat myself with my hubby’s parents- have been for the last 2.5 years, since I gave up a very well-paid job to do just that. When my father-in law became ill he was whisked off to some god-awful place where we were allowed to see him for only an hour a day, the reason for the restricted hours was because the place was run like a conveyer belt to the crematorium(which happened to be next-door), the so called care workers and nurses, cared not a jot from what I could see. The place was filthy, in spite of the army of cleaners standing around smoking at the main door, the food was disgusting, and the hygiene was only seen to be done, but in practice – they didn’t bother with it at all. Oh yes the place had a space-age reception area – packed with computers, electronic door locks to stop us getting in, bottles of hand-wash at every door- first glance you think, this place is ok. A real triumph of public spending, what a great service. On one of the days while waiting in the main reception to go in, a delivery truck stopped, the driver dropped off one of those big boxes of commercial milk for those milk machines, he left it on the door mat, where people wipe their feet, the porter came out from behind his electronic door, pickled it up, put it onto a trolley, wheeled it straight back into the ward, no hand washing. When we got into the ward, I watched as the same porter loaded the same box into a milk machine (it wasn’t wrapped or protected in any way), before pushing the same trolley around to offer patients and visitors a cup of tea. So everyone in the entire place is subjected to the years of the germs from people’s feet and god knows where else. It was no wonder my FiL caught infection after infection. They kept forgetting to give him his medication too. So we got him out of there pronto, we bought shed loads of equipment so that I could look after him at home, which I did until he died happily in my arms about 3-months later. That’ is a powerful experience. I now look after my mum-in law, almost full time. I’m not looking to send her anywhere or expecting any help at all, I just get on with it.

The world has changed, Colin, we can’t keep borrowing money to pay for things we enjoyed while we had North Sea Oil and Gas. Those days are gone. The cash from that industry is pretty much gone too. We have to become more selfless and help each other, rather than expect the State to sort everything out for us. Other cultures don’t have a problem with care for their elderly; perhaps we should look east for answer to looking after our parents.
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ColinB
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 12:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rachel wrote:
The world has changed, Colin, we can’t keep borrowing money to pay for things we enjoyed while we had North Sea Oil and Gas. Those days are gone. The cash from that industry is pretty much gone too. We have to become more selfless and help each other, rather than expect the State to sort everything out for us. Other cultures don’t have a problem with care for their elderly; perhaps we should look east for answer to looking after our parents.


I fundamentally disagree with you Rachel. Sorry. If society has the will act in favour of the sick and elderly then it does so. If it doesn't have the will then it won't do so.

And that's where I'll leave it, because it's not a matter I want to argue about.
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Rachel
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 12:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You’ve answered it right there Colin, “If Society has the will act in favour of the sick and elderly then it does so” By society, you mean State- someone else- other people. By society, I mean you and me.


There are much better answers to our problems than just spend more money, let the State do it. That is an outdated socialist ideal that just doesn’t work, and even if it did, (which it never would) we can’t afford it anyway.
Why not set up your own local care group, so you can get together with others whom care for their elderly- get some sort of support network going, start a system where you can “share the care” between you, so that you can have a day of respite now and again, organise yourselves so you can go on trips with small groups of two or maybe three to make life more interesting for the old folk. (I took my MiL to the Minack Theatre here in Cornwall the other week- she loved it, although it took ages to get her down all the steps and back up again- (she can’t walk unaided for long) but it made her sparkle.

If you have a garden- let elderly people come around to look after it for you, or just sit there in the sun, if they’d like that, having something to do, makes people live longer- feed and water them for their efforts.

You can sort so much stuff out for yourself, if put your mind to it. “What are they gonna do about it?” I hate it when I hear that. What are YOU gonna do about it?! That is the answer to most questions regarding looking after your parents. We all need a little help now and again, sure, but you should always try to help yourself first. Be the answer to your needs, not on your own but with others like you. That’s all I’m saying.
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ruddlescat



Joined: 16 Sep 2010
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 12:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I agree with the earlier comment that a large number of Tory MPs are angry about many aspects of what the present Government is currently doing
This is why as I pointed out to Colin previously after two or three years ordinary MPs and Conservative party members will ditch Cameron in favour of a more user friendly leader almost certainly David Davies
Do you notice how quiet he is keeping over the current issues and believe me its no accident
People often think of David Davies as being right wing but this is just an image built up by the press and by his opponents
He was brought up in a single parent household on a council estate in London and so has much more rapport with ordinary working people than Cameron and his cohorts ever will
Watch this space as they say Smile
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ColinB
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 2:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rachel wrote:
You’ve answered it right there Colin, “If Society has the will act in favour of the sick and elderly then it does so” By society, you mean State- someone else- other people. By society, I mean you and me.


Exactly. The same "you and me" that supports - and continues to support - the "free" National Health Service and "free" public education system.

I've been walking this planet long enough (and have raised a family in the process) not to be so daft as to think that there's no such thing as "free", but I also believe that we as a society - that's the whole collective of people who inhabit these isles of ours - have a moral obligation, not to mention a collective will, to provide such services out of taxation revenues such that it's free at the point of delivery. That's what Nye Bevan and Jennie Lee fought for so vehemently in the 1940s and 50s and they were right to do so. The needs aren't so different today.

In my opinion, education and public health (which includes the care for the elderly when it's most needed) is a moral obligation of any civilised society.

If we, that is "society", chooses to make such provision then we can do. If we choose not not, then we don't have to. We can do it - it's whether the mass of the population want to or not.

Personally, I want it, and that's why I'll fight for it just like previous generations of my family fought for what they considered to be basic human rights.

And with that, Rachel, I'm not debating the matter any further because we obviously disagree on the fundaments, so it's best left where it is.
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becky sharp



Joined: 01 Dec 2008
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 3:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ColinB wrote:
took action to support Nye Bevan in his campaign to establish a fair-for-all National Health Service.
May his endeavours never be forgotten ...we have much to thank him for.
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Rachel
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 01, 2010 3:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don’t think we disagree at all, Colin. We’re in the same lift, we just get off at different floors is all. I’m in favour of the NHS and free care for the elderly whom need it but there’s a difference between needing it because you have no one to look after you and needing it because no one will look after you. It might seem like the civilised thing to do, to send the elderly off to some state-funded place to die but I think it’s near to barbaric, I couldn’t think of a worse thing to do to my mum. They have their place, as I’ve said, for those whom really need it, but it’s not a place I’d send anyone in my family, while I have the ability to do something myself. It shouldn’t be the norm to die in some cold, heartless place away from your family.
There are, obviously, cases where you can’t look after someone yourself because they need regular medical intervention but that should be a fully funded NHS issue, not a means-tested Social Services care issue.
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Clive55



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PostPosted: Tue Nov 02, 2010 10:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rachel wrote:
I don’t think we disagree at all, Colin. We’re in the same lift, we just get off at different floors is all. I’m in favour of the NHS and free care for the elderly whom need it but there’s a difference between needing it because you have no one to look after you and needing it because no one will look after you. It might seem like the civilised thing to do, to send the elderly off to some state-funded place to die but I think it’s near to barbaric, I couldn’t think of a worse thing to do to my mum. They have their place, as I’ve said, for those whom really need it, but it’s not a place I’d send anyone in my family, while I have the ability to do something myself. It shouldn’t be the norm to die in some cold, heartless place away from your family.
There are, obviously, cases where you can’t look after someone yourself because they need regular medical intervention but that should be a fully funded NHS issue, not a means-tested Social Services care issue.

Rachel, I feel about the same about care homes. I would never consider for a moment sending my mother to a local authority care home.
There is one good quality care home where I managed to get respite for my mother. But the cost is high & the local authority would pay only half the cost. But if my mother did at some time have to go into a home, that is the only one I would consider.
She enjoyed her last stay there but at a later date I asked if she'd like to go in for another two weeks & she said no.
I agree that people should help their families. But the state needs to help too.
We all pay alot in every month while we are working- Tax, National Insurance, Rates- but get less & less back when we need it. It should be a partnership between us- the people- and the State. And that does not entail the state saying "We are not going to help you, just get on with it yourself. And tough if you can't"
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