February 2009 Archives

by Daniel Lombard

The national dementia strategy sets out to completely transform the lives of people affected by this debilitating set of illnesses.

For John Suchet, whose wife, Bonnie, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease three years ago, reform cannot come soon enough.

The TV newsreader, 64, spoke openly and movingly on ITV News recently about the irrevocable changes to their lives since she became one of the 700,000 people in the UK with dementia.

By Maria Ahmed, Deputy News Editor

Haringey Council's ex-leader George Meehan, who resigned over the Baby P scandal, has told a local paper he did not have all the information about the case. He told the Hornsey and Crouch End Journal: "I wasn't allowed to read the serious case review until it was published. I'm accountable but I can't read that document. Is that right?"

An interesting piece of research has been published by charity Action for Children, which shows a quarter of 1,000 people surveyed had been worried that a child they knew was being neglected. But 38% had not reported their concerns to anyone. Worrying, considering neglect cases account for 45% of children of abuse cases between 2007-2008.

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2009/02/25/110782/action-for-children-warns-of-public-confusion-over-neglect.html

By Bronagh Miskelly

At a time when Community Care is reporting high vacancy rates and social worker shortages on an almost daily basis, it seems extraordinary to hear of a university axing its social work degree programme. And yet that is exactly what we have learned about the University of Reading - a fact made even more surprising given that Reading Council says the closure will exacerbate existing staffing problems.

  By Maria Ahmed

Post-Baby P, children's services across the country are wondering how they can remain off the hit-list and show their mettle. Nine councils are already subject to government improvement notices over their failing children's services, and others are doubtless keen to avoid the firing line. But where can they learn how to turn themselves around?

By Sally Gillen

It seems no time at all since BBC viewers complained about former Blue Peter presenter Caron Keating on the grounds their children could not understand her Northern Irish accent, the suggestion being that, despite her talent, she should be replaced by one of the many accentless presenters employed at the time. In the 1980s the (in)famous BBC presenter voice reigned and anybody with the faintest hint of a regional dialect would be barely tolerated. 

The Sun newspaper continues to blunder through its coverage of the Baby P case - the latest development, according to the Sun, is that the General Medical Council has SUSPENDED the child's family GP but that social worker STILL have their jobs. Despite the paper's best efforts...

Where to begin dissecting this ill-informed contribution?

 By Bronagh Miskelly

Oh for some joined up government - perhaps just some joined up Department of Health thinking.

By Emma Maier

In an interview for Radio 4's Today programme this morning, journalist John Suchet gave a moving insight into caring for his wife, who has dementia.

During the programme, Imelda Redmond, chief executive of Carers UK, also raised the patchy approach to dementia care and the vexed issue of the difference between NHS care that is free at the point of delivery and means-tested social care.

By Emma Maier

The Baby P case was sad for many reasons. One that hasn't featured much in the media is particularly poignant for the social work profession: that the case followed another with chilling similarities. Had the lessons from that case been shared nationwide, maybe the outcome for Baby P would have been different. But they weren't. That's why Community Care has set out an agenda for change so that lessons can be learned without recrimination.

I recently received a phone call from Remploy, the government funded company that provides employment to disabled people, after I had written a feature in January on its decision to close 29 of its factories and the effect on some of the workers.

by Mithran Samuel

Sharon Shoesmith's interviews with The Guardian and Radio 4's Woman's Hour on Saturday were, in some senses, social work's equivalents of the infamous clash between David Frost and Richard Nixon in 1977.

In both cases, the subject of the interview was a publicly vilified figure associated with a national scandal who had been particularly criticised for failing to show sufficient contrition.

In both cases, they saw it as an opportunity to rewrite the record by putting their side of the story. In both cases, what the listening/reading/viewing public was after was a confession.

However, the chances of the Shoesmith interviews leaving a fraction of the mark left by Frost/Nixon are slim to non-existent.

 

By Derren Hayes

The thorny issue of whether religion has a place in the caring professions reared its head again this week when a community nurse was suspended for offering to pray for one of her frail patients http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/02/nurse-prayer-suspended.