Upcoming Review – “Caring With Confidence”
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Hi guys,
Just a quick one today.
A few weeks ago I was contacted by the publicist for a government scheme called “Caring With Confidence”.
She had found my blog whilst searching for people who might be able to help promote their scheme and wanted me to do a review for them.
I was very keen to do so as it sounded like a great idea, essentially its a training course for carers to help them cope with their situation, and so I agreed.
It turns out that “Caring With Confidence” (I’ll call it CwC for short) is comprised of several information/work booklets all about different aspects of caring. If you want it, they also provide somebody, I suppose you’d call them a tutor, to help you make sense of it all.
In addition, they hold local meetings where carers can meet up and discuss things together.
I’ve been very busy with uni work lately and haven’t had a chance to write a proper review, although I have formulated my opinions, but it will be done in the near future, so stay tuned!
If you’re interested, their website is http://www.caringwithconfidence.net/
Be back soon,
George
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Alright everybody!
I had an email from someone the other day asking me some very valid questions about Direct Payments for health care and I was so surprised by the clarity of my answers I thought it was worth posting them on here.
Their questions were:
-Are there any negative consequences to the extra patient choice that comes with NHS Direct Payments?
-Have I noticed any unfairness in the social care system, i.e. people in some areas getting more than others?
-They had never thought about healthcare and money being directly linked before, were worried it could become unfair and wanted my thoughts on this?
My response was something like this:
What do you guys think?
George
P.S. if you want to know more about Direct Payments for social care and the care system in general, you might like to check out my free guide to the care system at www.howtogetcare.com/freereport
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Direct Payments For Health Care…Fiiinally!
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Direct Payments have been the one majorly positive development in health and social care in a long time, and now it looks like the NHS has finally sat up and taken notice!
I’ve had Direct Payments for years, not at anything like the level of funding I have now, but, nonetheless, I’ve been signed up since I was about 12.
It is only because of Direct Payments that I can look forward to gaining more and more independence as time progresses, but getting the level of funding I need was no easy ride; the means tested world of social care is, as I’m sure many of you are aware, hard to navigate, illogical and unforgiving!
However, I was one of the lucky ones, many people get lost in the system and end up never getting the help they need.
Of course, Social Services and local authorities have a duty to make sure they only spend their (often extremely) limited funds on people who really need them and so it would be unfair to place the blame on them.
The fact is: there isn’t enough money.
Direct Payments from the NHS have always seemed, at least to me, to be the way forward for providing care to the most severely disabled and now it seems like this might become a reality.
The “Health Bill” which is currently before parliament will allow the NHS to provide people with a ‘Personal Health Budget’ AKA Direct Payments.
Hopefully, this will leads to many more people being able to enjoy the freedoms I do, freedoms they deserve!
What really interests, and surprises, me though, is it appears these ‘Personal Health Budgets’ can be used to pay for things other than personal care and all that stuff.
A case study on the Department of Health’s website mentions how one lady who took part in a trial of the new system used her budget to pay for hydrotherapy.
Now that might seem perfectly normal, but, if she can get hydrotherapy because it relieves her pain, does that mean if I had an NHS budget, that I would be able to get funding for a physiotherpist, in addition to my PAs?
If that’s the case, it opens a whole can of, quite frankly awesome, worms because people who currently don’t receive essential services (like physiotherapy) due to a lack of funding, may be able to do so!
Where the money would come from I don’t know, but still, we can but hope!
Here’s a link the Department of Health’s website: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/News/Recentstories/DH_107497
Bye for now,
George
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Just thought I’d give you the low down…
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Hi guys,
Just thought I’d let you know I got my Amazon Kindle (see my last post for details) a couple of days ago and I’m hooked on the thing!
I’ve read two books in three days FAR more than I usually read and, in fact, I’ve had to restrict myself because I’ve got so much else to do.
If you find it hard to hold a book, turn pages or even just hate having to carry books around, its definately worth the money.
It can hold up to 1500 full size books, you can download download them using the kindles own wireless connection and it does only take about 1 minute to download a whole book, no joke!
Plus, to my surprise, most books are very reasonably priced. A lot of them, even popular ones, are only about $5 (the kindle store works in dollars), which is roughly £3 or so.
Anyway, that’s it for now, just thought I’d let ou know it case any of you are interested.
Be back soon,
George
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I Think You Might Like This!
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I must admit, this is a bit off topic, but it’s got me really exited and I think it could be useful for a lot of people so please bare with me while I explain why.
As somebody with limited movement in my arms and not much strength to hold things, readings book has always been a bit of a pain, so for much of my life I never really bothered.
The first time I remember actually reading a book for myself was during my English Literature course at college, which I only took because I seemed to be good at it. At secondary school I tended to just get away with extracts and remembering what the teachers said.
I enjoyed reading the course books, but had to have someone turn the pages for me and this makes the process a lot slower and more frustrating than you might expect.
Despite this I’ve developed a real thing for books, not so much fiction, but books about successful people, marketing and anything that will help me be the best I can be and avoid some of the painful mistakes people make in life!
To paraphrase Thomas Edison “I only got where I am by standing on the shoulders of giants“.
The thing is, as old fashioned as it sounds, I’ve realised that books are like a fountain of knowledge, you can learn anything you like from them.
Sure you can find a lot on the internet, but books are the most inexpensive and reliable source of information by far!
I only really started reading regularly last November and since then I’ve probably read 6 books, not many really, but I’ve learnt so many valuable things it’s unbelievable, far more than from my uni course.
There is no doubt that, apart from personal experience, reading (the right things) matures and educates you more than any other activity.
There are page-turning machines you can get hold of (I was lucky enough to be given one by a family friend) that operate by remote control and once they are set up they work extremely well.
The issues with those however, are the price tag (in the thousands), size (oddly, mine looks like one of those x-ray reader things) and the time it takes to set them up for different books.
Thus, imagine how excited I was this morning to find that Amazon are releasing their fabled “Kindle” in the UK!
For the uninitiated, the Kindle is an E-book reader that can store around 1500 books at once and connects over a wireless network to Amazon’s ebook store (wherever you are, for FREE) allowing you to download books whenever and wherever you like!
Even better, it only takes around 60 seconds to download a full length book!
Now, to be fair, each book costs around $10, so probably £7.50, which isn’t exactly cheap, but for those of us have mobility problems it is quite frankly a god send!
The Kindle itself is thinner than a pencil, and probably doesn’t weigh much more than an ipod, so a lot of people should at least find it easier than a book.
In addition, it also has a text reading function that will read books to you, so if you’re visually impaired (or just feeling lazy) you can get an E-book and audio book in one!
It does cost about $279, you have to order it from amazon.com, not amazon.co.uk, but for me it will be worth every penny!
Have a good one!
George
P.S. here’s a link to the kindle that works in the UK http://tinyurl.com/yevgvxj
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For carers and the elderly and disabled
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http://www.howtogetcare.com
A guide for carers teaching them how to get care for their elderly and disabled loved ones.
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http://www.howtogetcare.com Have you ever wondered if you are eligible for carers allowance? For a FREE guide to health and social care, including carers allowance and related services, visit the website above.
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Social Care For The Elderly
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http://www.howtogetcare.com An Explanation Of How To Get Social Care And Support For The Elderly
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Do you get carers allowance?
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Have you heard of carers allowance?
I’m interested to know how many have because I suspect it’s relatively few.
What’s more, I wouldn’t be surprised if little more than a handful of those who have also know of Direct Payments.
This video will explain more about what I mean:
I’d be interested to know whether people are told about Direct Payments when they sign up for carers allowance, I’m willing to bet very few are!
Anyway, I look forward to hearing about your experiences.
Back soon,
George
“your personal health and social care guru”
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How should care of the elderly be funded?
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Hello everyone,
Today’s post is about care of the elderly and more specifically, how it is funded.
The video below gives a good introduction:
It is a very sad prospect that 40,000 people had to sell their homes last year to pay for their care, particularly considering we have a national health service.
Hard working people spend their lives working to pay off their mortgages and leave something for their children, only to find they have to sell their biggest asset just to have somebody look after them.
As far back as 1997 Tony Blair promised to end this situation, but now it’s worse than ever!
It isn’t for a lack of possible solutions either, there are plenty of better ways health and social care could be funded, if only somebody in government were prepared to put the wheels in motion.
Something has to be done sooner rather than later, or the impact of the ageing ‘baby boomer’ generation will cause care to get steadily more expensive.
Bye for now,
George
“Your personal health and social care guru”
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