February 22, 2007
Thursday, 22nd February 2007
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
Registration of Care StaffIt has been announced by Ivan Lewis, Social Care Minister, that domiciliary care workers and their managers will be the first group of social care workers that will be required to register with the Social Care Council.
It will cost £20.00 per carer/manager and the first applicants are expected on the register in early 2008. No date has been given as to when registration would be deemed compulsory.
The cost of £20.00 is higher than expected especially as the General Social Care Council had recommended that the fee should be set at £15.00.
Registration is yet another cost to the care industry. This cost, plus Minimum Wage increases, Criminal Record Bureau checks, CSCI registration and requirements plus increasing costs for transport, recruitment, insurance, etc. all mean that the cost of care for people who wish to stay at home or move into residential care, continues to rise.
Social Services information for 2007
The Social Services Yearbook for 2007 will be available from early March. The directory has 1000 pages giving details of 22,500 organisations and lists 21,000 key Social Services personnel.
It can be purchased for £135.00 from Pearson Education Ltd by telephoning 0870 607 3777.
However, most large libraries will have the new edition in their Reference Section when it is published or you can request them to order a copy for you to see.
London Congestion Charge
Not all drivers have to pay the London Congestion Charge and there are a range of exemptions and discounts. If you are a Blue Badge Holder and wish to travel to London, within the zone, you need to do the following to avoid charges;
- You need to register and you can down load the application form from www.ccLondon.com or telephone 0845 900 1234 and they will post an application form to you.
- Once you have the form you can fill in the details for either one or two vehicles. You will need to send a photocopy of your Blue Badge document, both sides.
- Send this off with a "one off" £10.00 registration fee and your exemption should be granted.
- After this, you will need to renew annually, but you do not have to pay any additional cost.
In-House News
Last week, Able Community Care had an unannounced care inspection carried out by CSCI. The Inspector worked in our office for a day and we now await the feedback. Carers and clients were also contacted on an unannounced basis.
Area South West
Mandy Gulatar our representative in the South West has attended two reviews, one in Wiltshire and one in Devon.
Potential new clients have been visited in London (2), Buckinghamshire, West Sussex, Derby and Northumberland.
Interesting Information
When "care in the community" first began to emerge in the early 1990's each local authority put into place a format to place care agencies on their individual Approved or Accredited list. Quite simply, each council re-invented the wheel in regards to their requirements and what we had to do in one council area we did not have to do in another e.g. provide carers with circuit breakers.Able Community Care was Approved or Accredited with over 60 councils and much time was spent in us form filling and representatives coming down from their council to inspect us.
The Commission for Social Care Inspection and their regulatory format ending with an inspection and the subsequent report being available as a public document, was supposed to bring an end to individual councils need to carry out their own processes.
However, this is not the case. Many councils are again having their own Accredited or Approved provider information that is given out to the public via their website, and so we, Able Community care and other nationwide providers, have to begin again going down the road of applying to individual councils.
One authority has ten Approved providers on their list, but not one is a live-in care agency!
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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