We support, inform and speak on behalf of older people in care
6th June 2019 Wednesday’s Panorama – and the one last week – yet again highlighted some of the gravest problems being faced today by adults needing care. This was illustrated clearly by Rita who has Parkinson’s disease and needs a lot of help. For a long time, she was cared for at home by her family and because of the severity […] Read More...
Blog Post by Des Kelly OBE, R&RA Trustee 11 April 2019 “Challenges exist but sector remains confident” declares the annual UK care sector roundtables and survey report 2018-19 convened by Caring Times (with Barclays, Knight Frank and Pinsent Mason). Now undertaken for the last 8 years the survey (and the events) provide valuable insight into […] Read More...
Social care sector unites in open letter to Ministers criticising careless Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill 8 February 2018 – Over 100 social care sector organisations have come together to unite and sign an open letter to the Minister of State for Social Care, Caroline Dinenage MP, and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Lords), Baroness […] Read More...
21 December 2018 – What a way to end a year! On Tuesday, the Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill reach the House of Commons despite the sterling work of Opposition and Crossbench Peers and over 40 organisations calling for the Bill to be stopped to allow for proper consultation. This Bill, to quote Baroness Barker ‘is […] Read More...
The Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) means business. Care UK – a major care and health provider – will face legal action unless it refunds the “administration” fees it was charging to 1,600 residents¹. These compulsory fees were sometimes as much as £3000. The CMA makes it clear that it is not OK to advertise […] Read More...
They isolate people and devastate families. 6 December 2018 – Much has been written about budget cuts over the last year, including this week, the BBC’s impressive graphs and charts showing council budgets cuts and spending only too clearly. Again, earlier this year, the Institute for Fiscal Studies highlighted the deep cuts in social […] Read More...
5 December 2018 – Judy Downey, Chair of the Relatives & Residents Association (R&RA) was on the You & Yours programme (Radio 4) on Monday, discussing a distressing death due to choking. Tony, one of our Helpline clients, described how he had discovered his mother being fed with a spoon instead of the syringe that had been prescribed for her and which was specified in her […] Read More...
26 November 2018: This week the Guardian has run a series of stories that show the current unacceptable state of the care home sector. An analysis of data from the Office for National Statistics shows that in the last five years, malnutrition, lack of hydration and bedsores have been referred to in the death certificates of over 1400 care home […] Read More...
2 November 2018 – The government’s troubled Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill continues to attract criticism for failing those it is meant to protect. Judy Downey: ‘the Bill does not meet the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights.’ Committee Chair Harriet Harman MP said:“The human rights of vulnerable people who lack mental capacity must […] Read More...
31 October 2018 – £650 million for social care sounds good but compared with the massive £7 billion of cuts to social care funding since 2010, it is a paltry amount. Government funding of councils will still reduce by 77% from 2015/16 to 2019/20 – going from nearly £10 billion to £2 billion.* This will […] Read More...