Care news

• Woman who lay dead in flat for three years wrote she was ‘starving’ in diary

  03-10-2024 19:06
  Inquest hears how 38-year-old Laura Winham, who was deaf and had schizophrenia, wrote of struggling to buy foodA vulnerable woman who lay dead unnoticed in a social housing flat for more than three years wrote in her diary that she was starving and running out of food, an inquest has heard.The “mummified and almost skeletal” remains of 38-year-old Laura Winham, who was deaf and had schizophrenia, were found in her flat in Woking in May 2021. Her family, whom she had asked to stop con
  
  Read more

• Rare court records show how poor women pioneered foster care in 1600s

  03-10-2024 06:00
  Vital role looking after destitute children gave these women unusual degree of power for the time, say researchersIn June 1697, at a sitting of the quarter session court in Preston, Lancashire, a widow called Alice Brewer submitted a petition in which she demanded to be paid her due.Brewer, described as “very poor, old and necessitous”, had been caring for 12 years for a “poor distressed child” called Anne Helme, which entitled her to a small annual payment from the local
  
  Read more

• Rising cost of social services in England putting arts and youth services at risk, say councils

  03-10-2024 01:01
  
  Some councils are already spending up to 80% of their budget on social care and say costs are rising and increasingly unsustainableThe spiralling cost of social services is eating into the budgets of England’s largest councils to the extent that many will soon be forced to abandon “nice to have” functions such as arts and youth clubs and Sure Start centres.Council leaders are concerned town halls are at risk of becoming “care authorities” focused primarily on the pr
  
  Read more

Follow @UK_Care on Twitter!