Elderly people suffering abuse and neglect in residential care homes (David Rose, The Times, 15 August 2008)

Elderly people are suffering from abuse, neglect and malnutrition in hospitals and care homes, according to a report by peers and MPs.
     The report, published today by the [House of Commons] Joint Committee on Human Rights, calls for changes in the law to safeguard the care of older people, and for a “complete change of culture” in health and care services.... [story continues]

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Over 50s could be losing out as hospitals discriminate on diseases and funding (David Rose, The Times, 15 August 2008) - hardcopy title: Hospitals accused of failing over-50s with poor care for common ailments

....Health experts found shortfalls in the quality of care offered to patients with conditions such as osteoarthritis, incontinence and osteoporosis.....
    The research, published in the British Medical Journal, found that the quality of healthcare for people with common health conditions “varied substantially by condition”.... [story continues]

See BMJ 16 August 2008 (Vol 337, No 7666):

	Is choice working for patients in the English NHS?
	Gwyn Bevan
	BMJ  2008;337:a935 (Published 8 August 2008) [Extract] [Full text] [Request Permissions]

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Wine and fags make a good pension plan (Carol Midgley, The Times, 14 August 2008)

...everybody - absolutely everybody - dreads ending their days in a smelly, callous care home wearing someone else's false teeth. It's a definition of hell and an ever-looming spectre, yet we frequently push it away because it's too grotesque to contemplate....
     The Commission for Social Care Inspection this year produced a report that said hundreds of care and nursing homes were so poorly run that they were a danger to residents....
     I have friends who solemnly declare that their real “pension plan” is to drink themselves to death in a haze of tobacco and enjoy it. I see their point. The OAP days could be some of the happiest and most hedonistic of your life, free from the middle-age checklist of constantly having to be somewhere, doing something, answering to someone.... [story continues]

How best to care for the elderly (Julia Neuberger, letter, The Times, 20 August 2008)

Sir, Carol Midgley (“Wine and fags make a good pension plan”, Opinion, Aug 14) rightly argues that it is amazing that more of us do not establish ourselves in communes for grown-ups when we get old, and care for each other — or, if necessary, buy in care together.

The US, Germany, the Netherlands and much of Scandinavia have just such schemes, called co-housing. There have been a few attempts to get this going in the UK, but none, as far as I am aware, have been successful.

We are not only sleepwalking into one in four of us needing long-term care in a care home, but also, all too often, denying ourselves, and, more significantly, our parents, much fun.

Can it really be that difficult to set up communes for older people, whether friends or not? And is it really beyond us to look at present provision and declare forcefully that it will not do?

Carol Midgley suggested wine and fags as our pension plan. Nothing wrong with that, but couldn’t we have a grey power movement as well that simply refuses to put up with much of what exists?

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PRISONS ACCUSED OVER ELDERLY CARE (BBC News, 12 August 2008)

Prison bosses in England and Wales have failed to respond to a call to introduce special policies for elderly inmates, the prisons inspector says.
     Anne Owers said the response to her 2004 call had been disappointing.
     The number of inmates aged over 60 has been rising, but Ms Owers said their treatment was at odds with policies for the elderly in normal society.
     The [Ministry of Justice] National Offender Management Service [NOMS] said a national strategy for older inmates would not be appropriate.... [story continues]

Older prisoners still face double punishment (Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, 13 August 2008)
Older prisoners a follow-up to the 2004 thematic review (June 2008)
Elderly Prisoners (Prison Reform Trust, 2006)

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THERE'S A LOT TO BE SAID FOR AGEING DISGRACEFULLY (India Knight, The Sunday Times, 27 July 2008)

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ESTELLE GETTY: ACTRESS ON US COMEDY THE GOLDEN GIRLS (The Times, 24 July 2008)

[Getty] was in her sixties before she became an international television star, as one of the four principals in the popular American sitcom The Golden Girls (1985-92).
     Uniquely, the series starred four elderly women and the storylines and jokes revolved around medical conditions and other aspects of ageing. Getty played the oldest of the four....
     Getty maintained, with some justification, that The Golden Girls [helped] to broaden Hollywood’s attitudes towards older people. “Before, every single older person was a mother or a grandmother. Now there are neighbours, secretaries and people who have jobs who are older people. You see roles they’ve never been allowed in before.”

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OLD-TIME DANCING (Robert Crampton, The Times, 23 July 2008)

One way in which British society has indisputably improved is that you now see old people dancing as a matter of routine. Not just the formal ballroom dancing they learnt in the Stone Age (although I admire that as well) but proper get-on-down unselfconsciousness booty-shaking to classic disco and soul. I've been at four do's in the past few months, in the Vale of Glamorgan, in the West Country, in southern Spain and in the Gulf, where, as soon as the band or the DJ started up, the floor instantly filled with people of 50, 60, 70, 80-plus eager to cut some rug. An excellent development.

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MORE SEX FOR TODAY'S SENIORS (New York Times, 22 July 2008)

The sex lives of senior citizens have improved markedly in the past three decades, according to a new study.

The data, published in The British Medical Journal, have been collected since the 1970s from 1,500 Swedish adults, all of whom were 70 years old at the time of the interview. Although the report is from Sweden, it mirrors recent research in the United States that show many people continue to have active sex lives well into old age.

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DON'T STOP ME NOW: PREPARING FOR AN AGEING POPULATION (Audit Commission, 16 July 2008)

Abstract: This report looks at the challenges and opportunities facing England as its population gets older. It aims to help local public services adapt to the needs of an older and more diverse society, and identifies solutions that can be implemented quickly, as well as exploring how councils should plan strategically for the wider challenges ahead.

Audit Commission press release: Councils unprepared for England's ageing population

Councils 'unprepared' for elderly (BBC News, 17 July 2008)

Many English councils are not ready to deal with the impact of a rapidly ageing population, a watchdog has said.
     The Audit Commission found 27% of town halls failed to have a strategy other than for social care and almost half were only starting to develop ideas.
     Inquiries to councils from older people about leisure and other activities were often referred to social services when there was no need, the commission said... [story continues].

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GIVING [sic] OLDER AND YOUNG PEOPLE A STRONGER VOICE (from Communites in control: real people, real power, Department of Communities and Local Government, White Paper, 9 July 2008)

from REPORT SUMMARY
35. It is important that older people can shape local services and in June 2008 the Government launched a review of older people’s engagement with government.

from REPORT MAIN TEXT
Empowering older people
4.64 In an ageing society it is particularly important that older people are actively involved in shaping local services. In June 2008 the Department of Work and Pensions launched a review of older people’s engagement with Government.70 This will examine the current arrangements for the engagement of older people and how these arrangements inform policy and actions of government at all levels. The review will report in the autumn. In addition, we will be refreshing our strategy for older people, Opportunity Age, over the coming months.71 Communities and Local Government’s recent 'Lifetime Homes, Lifetime Neighbourhoods' strategy highlighted how we would empower older people to live independently in their own homes for longer, creating more choice and control for people over their lives.72

70 See www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmwms/archive/080522.htm#hddr_17

71 see www.dwp.gov.uk/opportunity_age/

72 Communities and Local Government (2008) Lifetime Homes, Lifetime Neighbourhoods: A National Strategy for housing in an ageing society. London: Communities and Local Government

review of older people's engagement with government - statement in the House of Commons

Older People (Engagement with Government)

Mike O'Brien (Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions; North Warwickshire, Labour) | Hansard source

I have asked John Elbourne, former chief executive, Prudential Assurance UK Operations to examine the current arrangements for the engagement of older people and the ability of those arrangements to inform policy and actions of Government at all levels. Specifically, this will include examining Better Government for Older People's: aims, structure and relationships; past achievements, lessons learned and best practice; lines of accountability, governance and reporting; and management arrangements, legal status and funding. He will explore options for improvement of engagement with older people in respect of the new Government performance framework and in relation to the roles of other organisations. He will then make recommendations to ensure that the findings of the review take full account of the expectations of older people, best support the independence and wellbeing of people in later life and ensure an effective and efficient process to serve these needs. (TheyWorkForYou.com, 22 May 2008)

 

See the DWP's Public Service Agreement 17 – ‘Tackle poverty and promote greater independence and wellbeing in later life’:

Public Service Agreements (PSAs) set out the key priority outcomes the Government wants to achieve in the next Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) period 2008–2011.

The Department for Work and Pensions leads on PSA 17 with major contributions from the Department of Health and Department for Communities and Local Government. It spans all policy and service areas and links closely to other PSAs notably Health, Care, Employment and Equalities.

Local Authorities have a key role in contributing to the success of PSA 17 through Local Area Agreements. Other local partners, such as Primary Care Trusts and voluntary and community groups, also have a significant contribution to make in partnership with Local Authorities.

PSA 17 brings together action across Government to tackle pensioner poverty and to ensure that we adapt to an ageing society by promoting greater independence and wellbeing in later life. The Public Service Agreement (PSA) 17 has five key indicators to assess progress over the three year Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) period 2008–2011:

• the employment rate of those aged 50–69 and the difference between this and the overall employment rate
• the percentage of pensioners in low income
• healthy life expectancy at 65
• satisfaction with home and neighbourhood among the over-65s
• the extent to which older people receive the support they need to live independently at home

The PSA also outlines further reforms that the Government will take forward over the CSR period 2008–2011 to promote improvements in independence and well-being in later life, laying the foundations for adapting to an ageing society in the longer term. These include the pensions reforms set out in the Pensions White Paper 'Security in retirement: towards a new pension system'.

• Read the PSA Delivery Agreement for Later Life (this link will take you to the HM Treasury website)
• Read about the national indicators for local authorities and local authority partnerships – older people
• Good practice – a list of links to more information about designing services to meet the needs of local older people

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THE NATIONAL END OF LIFE CARE PROGRAMME (Department of Health, 9 July 2008)

"The Programme builds on the work of the NHS End of Life Care Programme, which ran from 2004-07. This SHA-led programme was supported by £12m investment, and was established to deliver on the commitment in Building on the Best to enable people at the end of life to have more choice about where they can be cared for, and die. Further information on the NHS End of Life Care Programme can be found at: End of Life Care Programme."

NHS told it must help patients to choose where and how to die Terminally ill will be urged to share their wishes (David Rose, The Times, 17 July 2008)
Promise may fit manifesto: will it meet the need? (Nigel Hawkes, The Times, 17 July 2008)
A Dying Refrain The Government is right to promote discussion on how we approach death, but our preference for dying at home may not always prove the best option (Leader, The Times, 17 July 2008)
Let's use death as a celebration of life - The Government's new end-of-life strategy is an opportunity to cast off our innate mawkishness (Valerie Grove, The Times, 17 July 2008)

Promise to improve care for dying (BBC News, 16 July 2008)

"People are to be given more choice over where they die as part of a package of measures to improve care for the dying.
     "Ministers are to outline the plans for England's first End of Life Care strategy, backed by £286m over three years....
     "[The Government's strategy] is being largely modelled on the Delivering Choice programme run by Marie Curie Cancer Care in six pilot areas."

Supporting the choice to die at home (Marie Curie Cancer Care campaign)

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PENSIONERS "SEE HIGHER COST RISE" (BBC News, 5 July 2008)

"The cost of living for pensioners has outstripped inflation over the past 10 years, a study suggests.
  "Pensioners have seen the cost of the goods and services they use rise by 36% in the past decade, said life insurer Clerical Medical [click to see press release].
  "However retail price inflation has risen by 32% in this time, it added." [ story continues]

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