Thoughts of a carer

 Social care has been in the news recently. As someone who at least likes to think he has some experience of the sector, I've taken an interest. Much of what has been rumoured has not impressed me; it seems as if those in charge have little understanding of the way the front-line social care system works, or of how 'service users' feel.  I've sent a couple of emails to my MP outlining my concerns. 3 September 2021 at 08:43 To: "FULLER, Richard" <richard.fuller.mp@parliament.uk> Good morning Richard Did you see last night's ITN News at Ten? They led with a story about the problems facing care agencies, and thepeople who use their services. Staff are deserting the sector in droves, meaning that some people who need help areunable to get it. Viv, my partner, would not be alive today if it had not been for the help she and I received from Sagecare Biggleswadewhen the NHS failed to correctly diagnose her hydrocephalus in 2017. It's possible that her c...

A few years ago, when I worked in an office, we once briefly discussed pensions. I was staggered that all of the new recruits - clever graduates in their mid twenties - had chosen not to pay into the company pension scheme; they felt they had other priorities, and that they would be able to save for a pension later in life. Anyone in that position now should read the following and perhaps consider where they might be in forty or more years time. + + + This morning I was updating a spreadsheet I keep on Viv's and my pensions. I like to update it every year, tracking our finances and at least making an attempt to work out how long it is that our savings might last. It's something that I think many of us are recommended to do, especially those of us that don't get substantial final salary pensions. To produce such a plan you need to make some assumptions about your financial needs in the future; you need to think about how your lives may change, whether both of you will live i...

I've just come off the phone after a regular chat with my mum. She's 88, living in a tiny bungalow in what was once a development of sheltered accomodation in South Cambridgeshire. (I say 'what was once' because, some years after she moved in, the council gave up on the 'sheltered' idea, just giving the residents a phone number to phone if they needed anything, and once-a-week visits from a council officer.) My mum was quite mobile in January 2020, but, as our leaders gradually put the fear of God into people, she stayed indoors in her tiny home from March that year. 'Use it or lose it' is the phrase my osteopath uses with regards to muscle strength, and, by February 2021, my mum was hospitalised due to her legs not working. She then spent maybe ten days in Addenbrookes followed by a couple of weeks in a rehab unit, where they were apparently much in demand due to the numbers of old people who'd stopped walking during the lockdown. By March my mum wa...

The problem of innumeracy today  In some ways I was lucky. I may have had what today's generation might think to be a ghastly childhood, but I did get some opportunities that seem rare today. One is in education: the chance to learn mathematics and science from teachers who actually understood their subjects. The above may sound bitter, it may sound like a swipe at modern schools. Maybe it is, but I have helped two youngsters - one my own son, another the daughter of a friend - with their maths one thing they told me was that their teachers did not seem to know what they were talking about. (In my son's case, it was post-GCSE, at the start of A-level, when he was being taught the basics of calculus - differentiation and integration. He didn't get it. He asked the teacher to explain, who couldn't, at least not so that my son could understand. In fact, the teacher's stock answer to most queries seemed to be 'look it up on the internet'. (Maybe that invention, ...

When my mum was in her mid sixties she moved to a small bungalow. My father and stepmother did also at around the same time. My mothers parent's moved to a bungalow when they were around 60. My sister moved to a bungalow before she was fifty. One of the reasons they chose single-storey living was that 'you don't want stairs when you get older'. I'm over sixty now, and I've helped Viv cope with stairs when she was in a wheelchair. I'm not convinced that single-storey living is necessarily a good thing for the older person. + + +  Let me give another example. Viv's Aunty Irene is ninety, and lives alone in a two-bedroom (two-storey) house. There is only one loo, upstairs. Her bedroom is upstairs, she spends most of the day downstairs but goes upstairs when nature calls; she goes up (and down) the flight of stairs perhaps five times a day.  Compared to my mum and stepmum, who are both a couple of years younger, she is far fitter. She can still walk around t...