‘Choosing adult social care is one of life’s most stressful experiences, but trusted information can help.’ This is the conclusion drawn by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) from the recent research it has carried out. It discovered that 70% adults who were responsible for choosing care in a care home or at home over the [...]
Last week I received a phone call just after breakfast from someone I knew to say that her mother had just fallen asleep in her chair. Nothing too surprising about that, I thought, after all she’s well past 90. But my friend seemed unusually concerned, so I agreed to pop round. When I arrived, I [...]
Many people associate dementia with the elderly, particularly those who are in their 70s, 80s and 90s. However, it is possible to develop dementia much earlier than this and there are increasingly more people in their twenties, thirties and forties who are being diagnosed with some form of the disease. Early onset, working age or [...]
Now that Theresa May has lost her majority in parliament, one presumes that social care policy reforms will once again be conveniently shelved until another election comes around. Sir Andrew Dilnot first put forward his recommendations for the Funding of Care back in 2011, and while receiving a favourable reception from both major political parties, [...]
It’s a sad fact that in the UK we spend less on health care as a percentage of GDP than Paraguay, Liberia, Moldova and Sierra Leone. And many other countries too, including most of Western Europe. (Source: World Bank) So, perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised at the parlous state of our health services right [...]
Most people looking for elderly care are doing so on behalf of an older relative, usually a parent. More often than not, it is a need that emerges quite suddenly. The person concerned might be deemed fit to leave hospital after say a fall or a short illness, but not be sufficiently able to look [...]
It's a little known fact that for some people, even those with significant assets, being in a care home can be completely free, courtesy of the NHS. It works like this. Some people, often after they've lost a spouse, decide they'd prefer to live in a residential home, rather than at home. There may not [...]
Listen to Fiona Gilbert discussing finding the right care home with Alex Goldstein.
As a volunteer Dementia Friends Champion, I run sessions for the public and businesses to help raise awareness of dementia. A small part of the session is based on the analogy of dementia and a set of Christmas fairy lights to explain fairly simply how dementia affects everyone differently. Just before Christmas many people will [...]
