Care news

• 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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• Social care is a timebomb beneath Britain – why does neither main party have a plan to tackle it? | Gaby Hinsliff

  11-06-2024 07:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Plans to fund adult care have been derided as a ‘dementia tax’ or a ‘death tax’. The carers I visited showed me that what they need is both urgent and simpleIn a church hall in suburban Croydon, south London, a familiar Beatles medley plays. The crowd sways and sings along, and an 80-year-old woman reaches out to hold her husband’s hand.Paul has vascular dementia and can no longer speak, but he smiles occasionally as if in recognition. His wife, Jill, says they were
  
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• Nearly half of England’s care workers get less than real living wage, study finds

  09-06-2024 16:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: Campaigners say next government should match policy in Scotland and Wales ensuring adequate payNearly half of all care workers in England earn less than a real living wage, according to research.Analysis by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) for the Living Wage Foundation found that 400,000 workers in social care (43% of the workforce) in England are paid less than £12 an hour, the amount required to cover living costs. In London the picture is even starker, with 80
  
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• ‘I literally work to pay bills’: A care worker’s struggle to make ends meet

  09-06-2024 16:00 via theguardian.com
  
  As research reveals half of care workers in England earn less than living wage, Matt shares his own struggle in the sectorNearly half of all care workers in England are paid less than the living wage, according to research.Analysis carried out by the Institute for Public Policy Research for the Living Wage Foundation found that 400,000 workers in social care are paid less than £12 an hour, the amount required to cover living costs. Continue reading...
  
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• Vulnerable children locked up and ‘gravely damaged by the state’, former top family judge warns

  09-06-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Sir James Munby says measure reflects government’s ‘shocking moral failure’ to help those in England and Wales with complex needs• Judges are sick of locking up vulnerable children who just need help. Why has nothing been done?Vulnerable children with complex needs are being locked away in unregulated placements and are being “gravely damaged by the state” while their parents are driven to despair, according to England and Wales’s former top family judge.
  
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• Vulnerable children locked up and ‘gravely damaged by the state’, England’s former top family judge warns

  09-06-2024 06:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Sir James Munby says measure reflects government’s ‘shocking moral failure’ to help those with complex needs• Britain’s judges are sick of locking up vulnerable children who just need help. Why has nothing been done?Vulnerable children with complex needs are being locked away in unregulated placements and are being “gravely damaged by the state” while their parents are driven to despair, according to England’s former top family judge. Sir James Munb
  
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• Judges are sick of locking up children who just need help. Why has nothing been done?

  08-06-2024 19:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Lack of provision for complex cases in England and Wales is a moral failure, says a former president of the high court’s family divisionThe BBC recently reported extensively on the rising and excessive use of deprivation of liberty (DoL) orders on vulnerable children in England and Wales. What was described is shocking and the stories they reported are heartbreaking. But this scandal is nothing new.For many years, judges have been calling for urgent action to address the shortage
  
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• Britain’s judges are sick of locking up children who just need help. Why has nothing been done?

  08-06-2024 19:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Lack of provision for complex cases is a moral failure by our ‘civilised’ country, says a former president of the high court’s family divisionThe BBC recently reported extensively on the rising and excessive use of deprivation of liberty (DoL) orders on vulnerable children. What was described is shocking and the stories they reported are heartbreaking. But this scandal is nothing new.For many years, judges have been calling for urgent action to address the shortage of
  
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• Lib Dems to promise £1.5bn reform of carer’s allowance including debt amnesty

  08-06-2024 11:00 via theguardian.com
  
  Proposals also include a £20-a-week boost to payments and an increased limit on earnings from part-time workUK general election live – latest updatesThe Liberal Democrats will commit to a £1.5bn overhaul of carer’s allowance, including a £20-a-week boost for more than 1 million people who devote their lives to looking after frail, ill and disabled loved ones, in their general election manifesto.An ongoing Guardian investigation has revealed that tens of thousands of
  
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• Nottingham city council to review case of women found dead in their home

  07-06-2024 18:46 via theguardian.com
  
  Local agencies’ involvement with Alphonsine Djiako Leuga and her daughter will be subject to inquest and ‘full review’On the last few occasions Alphonsine Djiako Leuga was seen in her neighbourhood, she is said to have told shopkeepers that she could not afford to heat her home or buy food for her disabled daughter.Months later, Leuga and her teenage daughter were found dead inside their Nottingham home. Police said the pair had “lain undiscovered for some time” but
  
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• Free social care for all should be a Labour policy | Letter

  06-06-2024 18:57 via theguardian.com
  
  Sally Powell says the policy that her husband introduced in 1991 in one London borough – and from which he now benefits – could be implemented by every local authorityIt has been reported that the Labour party is meeting this Friday to agree its manifesto. One of the most important challenges people face is the cost of social care for their loved ones. My husband, Iain Coleman, the MP for Hammersmith and Fulham from 1997 to 2005, has had about 20 strokes since 2004, and as a con
  
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• Record 2.1m children in England receiving free school meals

  06-06-2024 17:04 via theguardian.com
  
  Department for Education data shows one in four state school pupils are eligible, up by 75,000 in a yearA record number of state school pupils in England are receiving free school meals, according to official figures that also reveal soaring numbers attending special needs schools and rising teaching vacancies.The figures showing that more than 2 million pupils qualified for free lunches, an increase of 75,000 in the past year, were described as “chilling” by Daniel Kebede, the gener
  
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• The Guardian view on social care: the Lib Dems have a plan. It should be welcomed | Editorial

  04-06-2024 19:30 via theguardian.com
  
  After years of broken Tory promises, Sir Ed Davey’s policy of free home visits is a step forwardGood for the Liberal Democrats. Sir Ed Davey’s campaign pledge that his party would, if elected, fund free social care at home is the most significant policy announcement so far in a crucial area. The past 14 years have not been short of social policy failures. But the Conservatives’ lack of action on care is one of the most egregious. This is an issue they should have taken a l
  
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• What are the problems with the UK visa system for care work?

  02-06-2024 18:40 via theguardian.com
  
  Foreign workers say they have faced financial exploitation amid attempts to ease chronic staff shortages in the sectorDozens of foreign workers in social care in the UK say they have faced financial exploitation, paying thousands of pounds to secure full-time jobs and often finding little or no work available when they arrive.Experts say the number of such cases has jumped in recent years after the government relaxed the visa system for care work in an attempt to solve chronic staff shortages. W
  
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• ‘He didn’t have a contract for me’: the Indian careworkers who paid agents to work in Britain

  02-06-2024 18:40 via theguardian.com
  
  People paid to obtain visas and sponsorship certificates but arrived to find little or no work, in abuses of care worker visa systemAkhil Jenny was living in a small town in southern India, struggling with crippling debts, when a work contact offered him a way out.“I had some loans which I had taken out for medical care and I couldn’t repay them,” Jenny told the Guardian. “I had a nursing qualification and wanted to come to the UK. That’s what Shinto Sebastian offer
  
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• UK care agencies accused of exploiting foreign workers caught in debt traps

  02-06-2024 18:37 via theguardian.com
  
  Exclusive: Experts raise alarm over ‘national scandal’ that has hallmarks of trafficking and modern slaveryBritish social care agencies have been accused of exploiting foreign workers, leaving migrants living on the breadline as they struggle to pay off debts run up while trying to secure jobs that fail to materialise.Dozens of people working for 11 different care providers have told the Guardian they paid thousands of pounds to agents to secure jobs working in British care homes or
  
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• The Observer view on the social care crisis: whoever wins the election, it needs addressing urgently

  02-06-2024 07:30 via theguardian.com
  
  Labour and the Tories are avoiding talking about how to fund the overhaul of a system that is failing the elderly and people with disabilitiesThere is one pressing issue affecting millions of people that has been conspicuous in its absence from the general election campaign so far. The parlous state of social care in England – a system that has been described as being in crisis for well over a decade – is leaving too many older people and those with disabilities without the personal
  
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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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