On the third leg of his tour highlighting good practice in care and support, Care Services Minister Phil Hope travelled to Yorkshire to visit a telecare project that is helping people to live safely in their own homes. Greenfield Court in Harrogate is a complex of ten homes, called “wise homes”, for older people. The [...]

In pursuit of a gripping headline, Brown has scuppered a fair, sensible and long-term plan for care of the elderly Here was such a sound and solid piece of policymaking, rare long-term thinking about a wicked issue you wouldn’t expect just before an election. There might be few votes in it, with a political risk [...]

What are LINks? They’re Local Involvement Networks – individuals and community groups, such as faith groups and residents’ associations, which work together to improve health and social care services. There are 150 around England, and aim to give people a strong voice in the delivery of health services – to identify their needs and demands, [...]

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) has helped launch a new pilot scheme to enable asset rich but cash poor older people pay for additional support at home, which could help to make their lives easier and allow them to stay in their own homes for longer, rather than move into a care home. The JRF is [...]

You will recall the Budget 2009 announced £75 million of funding for the Care First Careers initiative, which has the ambition to help create up 50,000 job opportunities for young people in the adult social care sector. Social care employers will receive a £1000 subsidy for every eligible unemployed person they take on. Following a pilot programme, [...]

Home care, nursing home and care home experts discuss compliance with the Care Quality Commission’s new guidance Experts decode what the Care Quality Commission’s 275-page document on meeting new standards means for residential and domiciliary care providers and adult placements. Since 2008 registered providers have received a quality rating (zero to three stars), with poorer performers [...]

The government has done little to improve take-up of benefits among pensioners in the past six years and should refocus its efforts to reduce poverty, according to a report published today by Housing 21. The housing and care organisation, which last reported on the issue in 2003, said up to one-third of pensioners were not taking [...]

UK researchers have developed a technique which could lead to an eye examination to find Alzheimer’s and other illnesses before symptoms manifest. The scientists, from University College London, have developed ‘fluorescent markers’ which join on to dying cells, and which can be observed within the retina and show that brain cells are dying. The researchers [...]

The first of a planned chain of up to 30 private hospitals run as John Lewis-style, employee partnerships was launched in Bath yesterday, increasing competition with NHS trusts for patients and health contracts. Ambitious growth plans unveiled by Circle Health involve employing up to 10,000 staff through an investment of £1.5bn in a chain of clinics [...]

Millions of older people who take drugs for high blood pressure or heart problems can more than halve their risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, according to research. Use of angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) is linked to a “striking decrease” in the chance of getting the condition or of it progressing, especially in men, says a study published [...]