March 13, 2008
Thursday, 13th March 2008
Greetings from Angela Gifford, Proprietor of Able Community Care, and welcome to the Able Newsflash, published by email every Thursday morning.
If you enjoy reading it please forward it to any other person who may also find it of interest.
Alternatively, they can subscribe directly for their own copy each week from our website: http://www.uk-care.com
Care News
The Minimum Wage will be increased to £5.73 per hour from this October for people over the age of 21 years. The rate for people between the ages of 18-21 years will increase to £4.77 per hour. For 16 and 17 year olds the new rate will be £3.53 per hour.Government will announce new measures to enforce payment of the Minimum Wage, including a method for dealing with arrears. There will be an increase in the maximum penalty for non payment to an unlimited fine penalty.
Social Care for the elderly in Scotland is on the brink of collapse. Leaked documents have revealed that a cash crisis will mean drastic cuts in the services.
The Scottish aging population and increasing costs to provide free personal care have left many councils unable to meet demand in their area. For further information go to: http://www.scils.co.uk
In the UK 24% of the pavements are unfit for use. By June 2009 all local authorities must commit to repairing their dangerous pavements. Help the Aged is running a campaign to ensure that repairs are carried out as a fall for older people means that bones get broken and take many months to heal leaving them physically restricted and socially isolated.
If a pavement in your area is unfit and dangerous, then a call to Help the Aged will get two postcards sent to the caller. One is to send to a person’s local authority giving details of the dangerous pavement and the second postcard is to return to Help the Aged giving the details sent to the authority. Help the Aged commit to following up every dangerous pavement that is reported and in 2009 will publish a list of the worst performing councils.
Looking at their website; http://www.helptheaged.org.uk you can take a look at how many dangerous pavements have been reported by region.
In-House News
Potential new clients have been visited in Northamptonshire and in Devon.A care review has taken place in Norfolk.
Judy Tye and Nick Tulley attended a Norfolk County Council workshop re "in house homecare".
A new post has commenced in North Yorkshire. An elderly lady suffering with Post Polio Syndrome. Wage is £576.00pw inc. Care Manager Alan Wilson on 01603 281916
Potential carers have been interviewed in Devon, Hampshire and Norfolk.
Advertisements for carers have been placed in newspapers in South Wales and Suffolk.
Interesting Information
300,000 prescriptions have been lost by the NHS in England since 1997, or the equivalent of 78 prescription forms lost daily.Prescriptions, when they are given to a patient, are then handed over at a pharmacy and then sent on to the Prescription Pricing Division at one of their centres scattered around the country.
The loss of the prescriptions appears to have happened during the last stages and are either lost by the postal service or the courier service.
With effect from April prescriptions in England will increase to £7.10, a rise of 25 pence. In Wales prescriptions are free and in Scotland the charges are being phased out. (Source: BBC)
A Marie Curie Cancer Care survey has found that two thirds of people would want to be cared for at home if they were terminally ill. However, only 14% of the group believed that this would be possible: http://www.tinyurl.com/34jrms
Question asked of Able Community Care March 2007
"I always thought I would learn and play lots of golf when I retired, but after leaving work I suffered a stroke which has left me with very poor mobility and I use a wheelchair most of the time out of doors. I do, however, still hanker to play even with my problems, anything you can suggest?"
Answer : Golf can be played by golfers who are physically disabled and have to remain sitting to play. They can do this by means of a specialized electric buggy which has been designed for the purpose. The buggies have swivel seats, wide wheels so as not to damage the greens, seat belts and can be hired for £170.00 per year.
You could contact your local golf club to see if they have the amenities for disabled people to play if not, contact The Handigolf Foundation, which is a charity started in 1988 specifically to enable disabled people, across a range of physical disabilities, to play.
Their website is; http://www.handigolf.org or you can phone 01246 280397 for further details.
We hope you have enjoyed reading this and "see you next week".
Best Wishes,
Angela Gifford, Proprietor
Able Community Care.
Able Community Care is a nationwide provider of Live-in Care services.
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