Care news

• It’s a rotten system that puts unpaid carers in the dock | Letters

  12-04-2024 17:50 via theguardian.com
  
  A council’s benefits expert and a tribunal judge, plus other readers, respond to reports on how the DWP is persecuting carers for unwittingly breaching complicated benefits rulesI have worked in benefits for more years than I care to admit, although for local authorities rather than the Department for Work and Pensions. The news about the persecution of carer’s allowance claimants is not surprising (Calls to end ‘persecution’ of carers over UK benefits rule breaches, 9 Ap
  
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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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• Fostering is getting a shot of much-needed millennial energy – just ask Kiri Pritchard-McLean | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

  29-04-2024 14:00 via theguardian.com
  
  With Britain crying out for foster carers, my schoolfriend’s comedy show sheds light on what it’s like for those in their 30s What do you do if you always imagined a house full of children, but don’t want to be a biological parent? This was the dilemma facing one of my schoolfriends, the standup comedian Kiri Pritchard-McLean, who lives on Ynys Môn (Anglesey) with her partner. Like many people in their 30s, they were surrounded by friends embroiled in the maelstrom of bab
  
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• From potholes to planning: the issues at stake in England’s 2 May local elections

  28-04-2024 16:00 via theguardian.com
  
  While some voters may want to send a message to Westminster, more local concerns will have an influenceThis week’s local elections have been widely described as one of the toughest tests of Rishi Sunak’s 18-month premiership, with Westminster-watchers considering the results as portents of his fate in the coming national poll – considered to be coming this autumn.But while some voters in England may use their vote to bloody his nose this Thursday, a host of more local issues ar
  
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• From potholes to planning: key issues in England’s 2 May local elections

  28-04-2024 16:00 via theguardian.com
  
  While some voters may want to send a message to Westminster, more local concerns will have an influenceThis week’s local elections have been widely described as one of the toughest tests of Rishi Sunak’s 18-month premiership, with Westminster-watchers considering the results as portents of his fate in the coming national poll – considered to be coming this autumn.But while some voters in England may use their vote to bloody his nose this Thursday, a host of more local issues ar
  
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• Vulnerable teenagers ‘dumped and abandoned’ in hotels by councils in England

  28-04-2024 09:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Campaigners say cash-strapped local authorities are placing young people in budget accommodation, making them targets for grooming by criminal gangsVulnerable teenagers in care are being placed in hotels by cash-strapped councils, with experts warning they are being “served up” to criminal gangs.Children aged 16 to 17 are entering care in greater numbers than any other age group, often with complex needs, and experts say many councils in England now have nowhere to put them. They are
  
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• Work and pensions committee chair tells ministers to fix carer’s allowance issues

  27-04-2024 08:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Stephen Timms says DWP letting unpaid carers incur ‘enormous accidental overpayments’Ministers have been told to “immediately” fix the issues causing tens of thousands of unpaid carers to incur “enormous accidental overpayments” amid growing anger over the carer’s allowance scandal.Stephen Timms, the chair of an influential parliamentary committee, said he was “very troubled” that scores of carers were being forced into financial distress as
  
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• Loїs Williams obituary

  26-04-2024 20:04 via theguardian.com
  
  My mother, Loїs Williams, who has died aged 98, was a social work team leader, an actor, a founder member of the National Childbirth Trust, and a lifelong campaigner for human rights, justice, peace and equality.Her acting career began with the Entertainments National Service Association in 1945, followed by many repertory theatre tours and seasons at the Shakespeare Memorial theatre in Stratford alongside Paul Scofield and Joss Ackland. These provided rich material for her creative writin
  
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• Sunak under pressure to grant amnesty to unpaid carers fined for rule breaches

  26-04-2024 12:18 via theguardian.com
  
  Concern grows over legality of approach as figures show more than 150,000 carers facing huge penaltiesA hero – then sacked: the carer’s allowance whistleblowerMore than 150,000 unpaid carers are facing huge fines for minor rule breaches, figures show, as MPs, charities and campaigners demand an immediate amnesty.Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, joined calls to write off the vast debts incurred by tens of thousands of people who care for sick, disabled and elderly relatives after experts
  
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• UK policy denying visas to children of care workers faces legal challenge

  26-04-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: Action by organisation supporting migrants argues new rules are discriminatoryAn organisation that supports migrant workers has launched a legal challenge against the government’s new policy to bar care workers from bringing children and partners to the UK, warning that it is “tearing families apart”.According to Migrants at Work, care workers have to choose between family life with their children and partners or getting a job as a health or social carer in the UK &n
  
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• Hailed as a hero and then sacked: the carer’s allowance whistleblower

  25-04-2024 20:32 via theguardian.com
  
  Enrico La Rocca helped expose profound failures but less than a year later was dismissed by the DWP – and then later rehiredSunak under pressure to grant carers amnestyAlmost exactly five years ago, Enrico La Rocca was hailed by MPs as a hero, a whistleblower whose tenacity had helped expose profound failures at the heart of the government’s vast benefits agency, resulting in tens of thousands of vulnerable unpaid carers being unfairly fined and prosecuted.Without La Rocca – wh
  
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• Ex-Post Office executive says she does not recall email telling her Horizon terminals could be remotely accessed – as it happened

  25-04-2024 17:49 via theguardian.com
  
  Angela van den Bogerd says she forgot about email in 2010 saying cash balances in post office operators’ accounts could be remotely accessed. This live blog is closedHumza Yousaf, the SNP leader and Scottish first minister, is holding a press conference now.He says he has been in the post for little more than a year.We are investing record [sums in the NHS], ensuring it can employ record numbers of staff delivering the best performing A&E units in UK. We are, of course, the only part o
  
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• Ex-Post Office executive says she does not recall email telling her Horizon terminals could be remotely accessed – UK politics live

  25-04-2024 16:23 via theguardian.com
  
  Angela van den Bogerd says she forgot about email in 2010 saying cash balances in post office operators’ accounts could be remotely accessedHumza Yousaf, the SNP leader and Scottish first minister, is holding a press conference now.He says he has been in the post for little more than a year.We are investing record [sums in the NHS], ensuring it can employ record numbers of staff delivering the best performing A&E units in UK. We are, of course, the only part of the UK to avoid strike a
  
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• Children in care – there’s one in every classroom | Letter

  24-04-2024 19:11 via theguardian.com
  
  Children can enter and exit care repeatedly, making accurate data hard to obtain, writes Dr Louise Mc Grath-Lone The figures in your article (One in 52 Blackpool children in care as poverty soars in north of England, 17 April) used to illustrate the north-south divide in the proportion of children placed in care in England are counts of children who are currently in care at a single point in time.However, these data snapshots do not present the full picture, as they do not account for the comple
  
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• Ministers pledge to publish long-buried study into impact of fines on carers

  24-04-2024 17:56 via theguardian.com
  
  DWP carried out research in response to criticism five years ago but has consistently refused to publish itUK politics – latest updatesMinisters have pledged to publish a long-buried internal study into the emotional and financial impact of fines and prosecutions incurred by tens of thousands of unpaid carers for falling foul of strict carer’s allowance earnings rules.The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) agreed to carry out the research at the insistence of MPs five years ago a
  
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• UK government dementia adviser resigns over prosecutions of unpaid carers

  23-04-2024 12:06 via theguardian.com
  
  Johnny Timpson says he wants to ‘take a stand’ after revelations thousands of carers are being forced to pay huge finesOne of Rishi Sunak’s dementia advisers has resigned over the government’s approach towards unpaid carers, describing the prosecutions of vulnerable people as “beyond the pale”.Johnny Timpson, who advised No 10 on its dementia strategy, said he wanted to “take a stand” after the Guardian revealed that tens of thousands of unpaid car
  
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• UK government dementia adviser resigns over prosecutions of carers

  23-04-2024 12:06 via theguardian.com
  
  Johnny Timpson says he wants to ‘take a stand’ after revelations thousands of unpaid carers are being forced to pay huge finesOne of Rishi Sunak’s dementia advisers has resigned over the government’s approach towards unpaid carers, describing the prosecutions of vulnerable people as “beyond the pale”.Johnny Timpson, who advised No 10 on its dementia strategy, said he wanted to “take a stand” after the Guardian revealed that tens of thousands of unp
  
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