Archive for October, 2009
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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