Care news

• Everyone’s bound to be caught in Hammond’s tax rise net | Phillip Inman

  21-07-2018 18:22 via theguardian.com
  The chancellor needs to fill lots of holes in public services – and it will take big moneyPhilip Hammond, under pressure to ease austerity, must spend the summer preparing the ground for sweeping tax rises that catch everyone in their net.A tax on the rich is not going to be enough to meet the demand for £20bn extra on health spending by the end of the parliament, let alone the cost of extra police officers to tackle a significant rise in crime, higher social care funding and a boost
  
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• Labour has ‘no plans’ to allow health worker visas to include family members

  29-05-2024 19:17 via theguardian.com
  
  Rules were changed this year in effort to cut immigration, but experts warn bar on dependents will have significant impact on health serviceUK politics live – latest updatesLabour has “no plans” to change rules barring health and care workers from bringing their families to the UK on their visas, despite a plummeting number of NHS staff since the rules were changed earlier this year.Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said the health service had become too reliant on ov
  
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• Our children’s services system is broken. This sharp rise in deprivation of liberty orders proves it | Letter

  29-05-2024 18:50 via theguardian.com
  
  Steven Walker, a retired social worker, is worried by an exponential increase in orders and the issues underlying itThe number of applications to the family courts for children’s deprivation of liberty (DOL) orders – most of which are granted – has risen massively in the last six years, from around 100 to more than 1,200, as reported by the BBC’s File on 4 programme last week. This is testimony to a broken children’s services system. Worse still, the places chi
  
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• National reckonings and public inquiries: what scandals come next?

  28-05-2024 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  After the Post Office, infected blood, Grenfell Tower, Windrush and more, what could fall on the next prime minister’s watch? Reckonings with shocking national scandals have lately become a defining feature of British public life.Some, like the Post Office and infected blood scandals, have erupted from cases of wrongdoing hidden in plain sight. Again and again, whistleblowers are shown to have been sidelined, ignored and dismissed. Continue reading...
  
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• The Guardian view on private equity and public services: this trend needs reversing | Editorial

  27-05-2024 19:39 via theguardian.com
  
  From railways to nurseries and children’s homes, investors are taking advantage of chances to siphon taxpayer funds offshoreSector by sector, private equity is making deep inroads into UK public services. More than a decade ago, the collapse of Southern Cross, the private-equity-owned care home operator, revealed the havoc that can be wreaked when essential public services are run by heavily indebted businesses with complex financial structures. Typically, such owners maximise profits by u
  
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• ‘No one would accept blame’: Carers highlight DWP failures over debt crisis

  27-05-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Carers asked to repay sums as high as £20k say officials did not share eligibility information between departmentsCarers put through the wringer of carer’s allowance overpayments raise the same question time and again: they weren’t aware they had infringed benefit rules but welfare officials were. Why were they not told, rather than overpayments being allowed to run on for months, landing them with debts of thousands of pounds?For thousands of carers who unwittingly breached ca
  
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• ‘It feels like contempt’: DWP tells 85-year-old dementia patient to repay £13k

  27-05-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Cypriot-born Sia Kasparis, who speaks limited English, was not told about disability premium overpayment for several yearsEighty-five-year-old Sia Kasparis was in her hospital bed in the living room of her small north London flat when there was a knock at the door.The grandmother-of-five has been bedbound for the last two years, the result of a collapsed vertebra and a range of other health problems, including vascular dementia, heart failure and kidney disease. Continue reading...
  
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• ‘It feels like contempt’: DWP asks 85-year-old dementia patient to repay £13k

  27-05-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Cypriot-born Sia Kasparis, who speaks limited English, was not told about disability premium overpayment for several yearsEighty-five-year-old Sia Kasparis was in her hospital bed in the living room of her small north London flat when there was a knock at the door.The grandmother-of-five has been bedbound for the last two years, the result of a collapsed vertebra and a range of other health problems, including vascular dementia, heart failure and kidney disease. Continue reading...
  
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• Next government urged to wake up to UK’s ‘shocking’ levels of child poverty

  25-05-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Charities call for law within first 100 days after general election to ensure annual rises in the financial help parents receiveThe next government should pass a new law within 100 days of winning the general election that would commit ministers to eradicating child poverty for good, the five biggest UK children’s charities say this weekend.The organisations demand legislation in the first king’s speech that would include plans for a “child lock” – equivalent t
  
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• Monetising children in care is morally bankrupt | Letters

  24-05-2024 18:20 via theguardian.com
  
  David Scattergood on how the work of independent fostering agencies is offering a glimmer of hope and Peter RC Williams on the government’s obligations. Plus a letter from Nina Lopez and Tracey NortonGeorge Monbiot is right to highlight the state of the free market in children’s social care (How can a child in care cost £281,000 a year? Ask the wealth funds that have councils over a barrel, 18 May). With more children in care now than ever before, children’s residential a
  
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• National Audit Office to investigate growing scandal over carer’s allowance

  23-05-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Government watchdog says action prompted by DWP’s lack of progress in tackling overpayments problemsThe government’s spending watchdog is to investigate the growing scandal over carer benefits that has plunged tens of thousands of vulnerable unpaid carers into debt after they unwittingly breached benefit rules.In a letter, the National Audit Office (NAO) told the Commons work and pensions select committee its intervention was triggered by public and political concerns over the mounti
  
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• Liz Wolstenholme obituary

  19-05-2024 18:33 via theguardian.com
  
  My wife, Liz Wolstenholme, who has died of cancer aged 78, combined family life with a career in health and social care, mainly in Yorkshire.Liz’s achievements came from being a quiet, firm and inspirational leader who worked behind the scenes to unite disparate factions of the organisations in which she was employed. She placed collaboration ahead of competition and was always on the side of the underdog. Continue reading...
  
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• Meet Becky, aged 14, suicidal, alone and unwanted. Victim of a cruel and uncaring state | Louise Tickle

  18-05-2024 20:00 via theguardian.com
  
  I have followed the life of this desperate child as her life has been ruined by a bankrupt systemYou’re a teenage girl and you’ve been locked in a bare hospital room for more than 15 months. Your bed is a platform attached to the floor. There’s a plastic toilet and a sink moulded into the wall. Your only human contact is through a hatch in the door. Sometimes you get to hold your mum’s hand through it.You’ve tried to kill yourself multiple times, including trying to
  
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• How can a child in care cost £281,000 a year? Ask the wealth funds that have councils over a barrel | George Monbiot

  18-05-2024 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Children crying out for stability are paying the highest price for Britain’s chaotic and exploitative residential careI’m a patron of a small local charity that helps struggling children to rebuild trust and connection. It’s called Sirona Therapeutic Horsemanship, and it works by bringing them together with rescued horses. The horses, like many of the children, arrive traumatised, anxious and frightened. They help each other to heal. Children who have lost their trust in humans
  
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• Ministers clawing back £251m from carers hit by DWP’s allowance failures

  18-05-2024 01:01 via theguardian.com
  
  ‘Strikingly large’ sum being recouped from people who fell foul of system that did not flag overpaymentsMinisters are clawing back more than £250m from unpaid carers over benefit infringements that occurred largely as a result of government failures, it can be revealed.More than 134,000 people who care for loved ones are being forced to repay often huge carer’s allowance overpayments. The debts are incurred in many cases through no fault of their own, and leave carers sad
  
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• Kate Garraway: persecution of carers has ‘horrible echo’ of Post Office scandal

  17-05-2024 16:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Presenter, who cared for late husband, said she was approached by people in street pleading for interventionThe TV presenter Kate Garraway has said the UK government’s prosecution of unpaid carers for thousands of pounds in benefit payments has a “horrible echo” of the Post Office scandal.In an emotional intervention on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Garraway said many people had pleaded with her to “please do something” to help those being pursued by the Departm
  
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• Hospitals struggle as social care crisis cancels out funding boost, NHS report says

  17-05-2024 01:12 via theguardian.com
  
  The number of people stuck in hospital for more than three weeks has risen 15% on pre-Covid levelsStrike action and the social care crisis have left thousands more people trapped in hospital beds with nowhere to go while other patients struggle to access the care, nullifying an increase in funding and NHS staff, it has been reported.A damning internal review of NHS efficiency carried out last year has reportedly revealed that, despite a £20bn increase in funding since 2018 and 15% more doc
  
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• Carer’s allowance report a vivid insight into failings of an unfit system

  16-05-2024 20:54 via theguardian.com
  
  Little wonder welfare ministers were so reluctant the publish the study they commissioned five years agoThere are plenty of reasons why welfare ministers were reluctant to publish the study they commissioned into unpaid carers’ experiences of carer’s allowance five years ago, and which has finally emerged under duress.In 2019 they had undoubtedly been chastened by criticism from MPs and auditors that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) did not understand how a relatively littl
  
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• Ministers knew about carer’s allowance problems three years ago, report reveals

  16-05-2024 20:46 via theguardian.com
  
  Suppressed DWP study told of hardship endured by carers forced to repay thousands after minor allowance breachesMinisters were warned three years ago that unpaid carers were being treated unfairly and forced to repay huge sums for minor benefit breaches, a long suppressed government report has revealed.A Department for Work and Pensions document presented to politicians in 2021 detailed how carers – the majority of whom were on low incomes and spending 65 hours a week caring for loved ones
  
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• Vicki Golding obituary

  15-05-2024 17:09 via theguardian.com
  
  My mother, Vicki Golding, who died aged 85, was a social worker and senior manager for the London Borough of Enfield, where she strove to do what she could to improve the lives of children and young people.In the late 1970s, her caseload included children who had experienced sexual abuse within the family. Determined to find support for these children, she contributed to family therapy sessions with professionals who were pioneers in this field at Great Ormond Street hospital. This was at a time
  
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• Ministers apologise and return £7,000 in benefits to woman, 93, with dementia

  15-05-2024 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: Elderly woman was allowed to run up debts in ‘disturbing’ case, the latest to emerge in Guardian investigationGovernment ministers have formally apologised and repaid £7,000 to a 93-year-old woman whom they held responsible for running up benefits overpayment debts even though they were told she had dementia and was unable to manage her affairs.The case, which the minister for disability, Mims Davies, admitted was “disturbing”, was brought to light by the
  
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• Millions of British children born since 2010 have only known poverty. My £3bn plan would give them hope | Gordon Brown

  14-05-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  We know about the hardship of ‘Thatcher’s children’, but a new generation of Tories has raised inequality to even higher levelsChildren of austerity need a rescue plan, says Gordon BrownThey are austerity’s children, born after 2010, perhaps now at secondary school – and they account for 3.4 million of Britain’s 4.3 million children in poverty. Most have never known what it is like to be free of poverty. And yet in almost every single year of the past decade,
  
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• Cost of dementia to UK could almost double to £91bn by 2040, study finds

  13-05-2024 01:01 via theguardian.com
  
  ‘Colossal’ costs of disease include health and social care as well as societal costs such as legal fees and lost economic consumptionDementia could cost the UK almost £91bn a year by 2040, as the number of people affected rises inexorably, a study has found.The “colossal” costs of the disease are likely to more than double from an already “staggering” £42.5bn today to £90.6bn, according to research undertaken for the Alzheimer’s Society
  
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• ‘We’ve waited long enough’: Victorian government to pay $276m for those abused in state care

  11-05-2024 22:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Allan government allocates $165m towards redress for victims of historical abuse and neglect in institutional care, while $111.4m will be spent on civil claimsFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastIn a secret meeting as Victoria’s budget was being announced, the full scale of the historical abuse of children in state care – and its impact on the government’s finances – was being laid
  
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• Revealed: thousands of ‘innocent and abandoned’ migrant care workers told to leave UK

  11-05-2024 12:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Observer and Bureau of Investigative Journalism find that workers whose sponsoring company had been sanctioned were also being punishedThousands of migrant care workers have been threatened with deportation, despite doing nothing wrong, after the Home Office took enforcement action against their employers.In one case, a brother and sister from India who paid a recruitment agency £18,000 to secure care jobs in the UK, only to find they had been scammed, were told they must find another comp
  
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• Carer’s allowance scandal is not going away – but will DWP reform happen?

  09-05-2024 17:23 via theguardian.com
  
  After the Guardian exposé there is pressure on ministers to save people from a system described as ‘setting carers up for a fall’It has been a month since the Guardian revealed the shocking scale of the carer’s allowance overpayments scandal, and the misery and despair it has inflicted on tens of thousands of unpaid carers. The issue is not going away – but what happens next?The story has since spread: from the House of Commons to the sofas of daytime TV and the bu
  
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• DWP’s unchecked database leaves tens of thousands of carers at risk of debt

  09-05-2024 17:22 via theguardian.com
  
  About 50% of earnings ‘alerts’ for carer’s allowance overpayments not looked at by staff, figures revealTens of thousands of unpaid carers are at risk of debt and criminal prosecution because their cases are lying unchecked on a government “alert” database of people being overpaid benefits, according to new figures.Officials are aware of the mounting number of instances where UK carers are at risk of racking up overpayments that can in some cases lead to crippling d
  
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• Children in danger as NSW child protection reaches crisis point, striking caseworkers say

  07-05-2024 17:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Public-sector workers call for pay rise, 500 additional staff and the de-privatising of out-of-home careGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastNew South Wales child protection workers have warned that some of the state’s most vulnerable children are being neglected or put at risk of being removed from their families because resourcing problems in the sector have reached crisis point.More than 2,000 public-sector child protection workers across the state pl
  
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• Coroner issues warning over year-round ambulance delays in England

  06-05-2024 14:09 via theguardian.com
  
  Wiltshire coroner writes to health secretary after inquest of man who died after waiting more than 5 hours for ambulance A senior coroner has issued an official warning about the “significant disruption” being caused to ambulance services as vehicles wait for hours to transfer patients into hospital, highlighting that the problem now happens all year round rather than only in winter.David Ridley, the senior coroner for Wiltshire and Swindon, has written to the UK health secretary, Vi
  
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• Spending cuts are often false economies that end up costing society dearly | Torsten Bell

  04-05-2024 19:00 via theguardian.com
  
  New research has found that every pound saved in closing police stations costs the rest of us £3Every government looks to save money. Sometimes, it’s a priority to reduce spending, as with post-2010 austerity. Even when overall spending is rising, politicians may reduce spending in one area to make progress on a priority elsewhere. Doing things more efficiently is always a good idea.But announcing a spending cut is not the same as reducing spending, let alone achieving value for taxp
  
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