Community Care Magazine for Elderly and Disabled: GAZETTE No.49SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2006 Delivery Service If you have difficulty in transporting luggage, because it is big and bulky; you are elderly or disabled; or just don't want the bother; you may be interested in a service that could help remove some of the hassle. The service operates world-wide and you can eliminate waiting around for hours at check-in desks or just have your luggage delivered to a private home or hotel. Further information can be found on their website: www.carrymyluggage.com The Independent Living Fund The ILF is set up as a national resource dedicated to the financial support of disabled people enabling them to choose to live in the community rather than residential care. In other words, if you are disabled, wish to live in the community and are eligible for funding, then the ILF can help you to do so. The eligibility criteria are that an applicant must:
Applications can be accepted from another person if the disabled person is unable to complete the application form themselves. The funding has to be used to pay for personal and/or domestic care that is required for a person to remain living at home. For further details/application form telephone 0845 601 8815. You may also like to visit the ILF website at www.ilf.org.uk Additional Older People To Be Protected From Abuse Thanks to lobbying, older people who commission their own care with local authority funding will receive equal access to protection from abuse under the law. The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill aims to protect older people from abuse by creating a list of named individuals who are barred from working with vulnerable groups. Local authorities will now have a duty to inform "direct payments" users of the new scheme. (Source: Help the Aged). Beautiful Underwear If you live with an Ileostomy, a Urostomy or a Colostomy and would like pretty, feminine underwear, or fashionable male underwear, you may like to visit the website of White Rose Collection Ltd. The company is run by husband and wife team, David and Tanya Hutton. Tanya herself has an Ileostomy. To obtain their current catalogue go to website www.whiterosecollection.com or telephone 01202 854634. Are You Owed Any Money? Age Concern believes that the Government should do more to encourage pensioners to claim the benefits they are entitled to. For example, many pensioners do not claim Pension Credit. Some of the reasons for non claiming are that many pensioners do not realise that they are entitled to additional money. They may be put off by thinking that the process is just too complicated or would rather "make do," feeling that there is a stigma attached to claiming. If you think you may be entitled to a financial benefit, or just want to find out if you are actually eligible for extra funding, give your local Age Concern a ring. To date up to £4.1bn of benefits for pensioners go unclaimed each year. What Do All These People Have in Common? Leonardo Da Vinci, Robert Redford, Oprah Winfrey, Sir Paul McCartney and Charlie Dimmock. Answer is they are all left handed. "Anything Left-Handed" is the company name for a firm that specialises in products for left-handed people. They can provide a huge range of products such as scissors, golf equipment, garden and DIY equipment, guitars, computer equipment through to pocket knives. If you would like further details go to their website at www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk or call them on 020 8770 3722. Long-term Care Insurance Since October 2004 advising on long term care insurance has been regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). With an ever increasing number of elderly people needing to fund their care this area is seen as a high risk advice area. To eliminate this risk the FSA have brought in an appropriate certificated examination. The Certificate in Financial Planning and Long Term Care (CF8) should ensure that any person who is awarded this certificate is competent to give safe and appropriate advice to any person thinking about long-term care planning. If existing financial advisors wish to continue giving advice they must pass the examination before October 2006, otherwise they should cease giving advice in this area. Currently, the number of advisors who have passed the exam and been awarded the certificate is only approximately 13,000, which is quite low considering there are around 166,000 Financial Advisors in the U.K. The Season for Beetroot Since the advent of Farmers Markets there are now more opportunities to buy freshly pulled beetroot. For many years, unless you grew some in your garden, you were only able to buy beetroot in jars. During the Second World War, Beetroot Pudding was regularly baked. Beetroot was cheap, anyone could grow it and it was often used as an ingredient in a cake. We have written a recipe below, so if you have some fresh beetroot, why not give it a try? You will need: 6oz wholemeal flour Method
Able Newsflash The number of "Able Thursday Newsflash" readers continues to grow. Each week, there are news items about various aspects of care in the UK, "in house" news about Able Community Care, and many interesting facts and statistics from the care world. If you have not already signed up and would like to, just submit your name and email address in one of the boxes on this page to receive your free copy each week. We All Complain About Things! We all complain but sometimes we feel so strongly about an issue that we would like to do something to alter the situation. It could be about local issues where you live such as transport; how to clean up your street; deal with dog fouling; or even setting up a youth club. If you want to organise a campaign, set up a group, run a petition, fundraise or even, on a personal level to influence a planning application, the BBC Action Network can help you. The BBC Action Network has written guides to help you navigate and get to grips with things that matter to you. To access these guides go to website www.bbc.co.uk/dna/actionnetwrok/guidelist Tea Bags! Tea first came to Britain in the 17th century. At this time, it was green tea, not the black tea we are familiar with today. Popularity for black tea did not appear until the late 18th century. The problem with loose tea however, was the mess involved in cleaning out the pot each time, and many inventors tried to come up with ideas to alleviate this problem. Diffusers such as tea eggs and tea balls were invented, which were filled with loose leaves and then dropped into the tea pot. They had chains attached in order that they could be removed easily. It was not until about 1908 that the first tea bags were invented. A New York tea merchant had the idea of sending samples of the tea he sold to his customers. He placed his samples in little, silken bags. Some of his customers assumed that, like previous tea diffusers, you were meant to put these bags straight into the pot. This was the birth of the tea bag. However, the British were not too enamoured with this new fangled method and it was not until 1953, when Tetley introduced tea bags in Britain, that the tea bags began to gain popularity. In 2006, the sale of tea bags accounts for 96% of all tea sales in Britain. Slippers This is the time of year, when nights start to pull in, temperatures drop and the shoe shops start to display their slipper products. Buying slippers, especially for an older person, is a task which should be viewed seriously. Last year 14,000 mainly elderly people, fell and broke their hips in the UK. Poorly fitting footwear was the biggest cause. When choosing slippers for an older person you may like to bear the following in mind:
Beware... This recently happened to one of our Carers and we thought it was a good idea to tell our readers about it, so you could be aware of what could happen. A Carer had to take her client to A & E. Whilst she was giving the hospital receptionist the details, name, address, d.o.b. etc. she became aware of a young man standing close by. When she had finished giving the details, she moved away from the desk and the young man did also. A day or so later, the Carer became aware of a man in the driveway of her client's home and when the doorbell rang she went to answer it. The man asked for directions to the hospital, but the Carer was sure he was the same young man who she had seen in the A & E reception a day or so before. The Carer reported the incident to the Police and found that the "young man" was known to them and he was probably casing the home to see if it was unoccupied. The message is: make sure that when you are giving personal details to anyone, you are not overheard or overlooked. Pass It On Cards For many years we have had "Pass it on Cards" for carers to give to other carers they come into contact with. The intention being that they may ring Able Community Care and join us as a Carer. We now have a "Pass It On Card" for people who may be interested in "looking for an alternative to moving into a residential care home". The card has this message and gives our contact details on the back. If you would like some of these cards, please give Sarah or Jill a call on 01603 281910/281928. Finally "Why do soldiers like Autumn so much?" "Because of all the leaves!" "What happened to the cat which ate a ball of wool?" "It had mittens!" If you would like to receive our current brochure please call 01603 764567.
home | about us | contact us | care FAQ | terms & conditions | privacy policy | care links service-user-access-form.pdf | litigation services | second hand store Able Community Care Opening Hours: 9:00am - 4:00pm GMT, Monday to Friday Tel: +44 (0)1603 764567 | Fax: +44 (0)1603 761655 | Email: ablemg@aol.com © Able Community Care | VAT number 552696317 | Proprietor: Angela Gifford |