Fighting Monsters

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• Happy Birthday, NHS

  Today is the 60th anniversary of the founding of the National Health Service. There has been a lot of coverage over the last week in every kind of media source to commemorate this. From finding people born on the same day to relive their lives through... Posted Jul 05 2008, 05:43 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: social work, social issues, work, medication, health care, health, nhs, Medicine, social worker, National Health Service

• Trouble at Southern Cross

  Both The Times and The Guardian reported that Southern Cross Healthcare Group have been launched into some kind of financial crisis following the failure to repay a loan of some £46 million. Times are getting harder and a lot of firms are failing - but... Posted Jul 02 2008, 02:43 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: residential care, social care, social work, social issues, older people, work, old age, elderly, long-term care, uk, housing, health, care home, csci, Southern Cross, Southern Cross Healthcare Group, nursing home

• Assumptions

  I work in the inner city and have since I did my first practice placement in the first year of my social work course almost 10 years ago now.  For as long as I have been working as a social worker , I have only ever worked in the inner city - different... Posted Jul 01 2008, 05:27 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: social care, social work, social issues, older people, dementia, work, carers, socialcare, mental health, old age, elderly, health, caregivers, carer, alzheimers, social services, United Kingdom, respite care, family, residential respite, assumptions, options for care, respite, domiciliary respite

• Legislating for Equality

  Details regarding the new Equality Bill were announced last Thursday. The Bill seems to be an attempt to consolidate existing legislation related to discrimination - a seemingly uncontenious issue - however combined with this are some new proposals which... Posted Jun 28 2008, 05:59 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: social issues, older people, work, discrimination, old age, uk, health care, health, Age Discrimination, Elderly care, equality bill, Home Care

• A Golden Touch

  I like talking to people. One of the things I enjoy most in my job and the area that I work in is that I find that the stories people have to tell about their lives fascinating and a part of getting to know someone, their needs, hopes and aspirations... Posted Jun 25 2008, 03:27 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: social issues, older people, work, old age, elderly, elders, ww2, elderly people, evacuation, talking

• The Death of the Giro

  Image via Wikipedia I was minding my own business, listening to Moneybox on the Radio at the weekend - when I heard that Benefits Cheques are to be phased out. The Giro is on its last legs. I don’t want to be pessimistic at all, in the face of the... Posted Jun 24 2008, 04:51 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: social issues, older people, work, benefits, elderly, uk, direct payment, United Kingdom, Pension, James Plaskitt, pensioners, dwp, National Pensioners Convention, Royal Mail, Department for Work and Pensions

• Caring for Carers

  This week is Carers Week. There has been quite widespread coverage in the press - certainly from where I’m sitting anyway. Yesterday the government printed it 10 year Strategy for Carers. It has been widely reported that the main tenet of the strategy... Posted Jun 11 2008, 06:03 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: social care, social issues, older people, work, carers, socialcare, old age, benefits, politics, elderly, uk, health, caregivers, carer, rethink, respite care

• Is Care Management Social Work?

  How much of social work exists in the Care Management model? It’s a question I’ve been toying with for a fair amount of time - especially as most of my work, post-qualification anyway, has been situated very much within the care management... Posted Jun 08 2008, 06:14 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: social care, social work, social issues, older people, work, local authority, benefits, uk, health, nhs and community care act, role of social worker, care management, personalisation

• Help to care

  I first saw on the news over the weekend about the report produced by the Institute for Public Policy Research related to  Personalised Budgets for Carers and it baffled me a little bit. Don’t get me wrong, I completely think that carers need... Posted Jun 04 2008, 05:40 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: social care, social work, social issues, older people, work, carers, local authority, old age, benefits, long-term care, uk, caregivers, carer, institute for public policy research, carers allowance, direct payments, social services, personalised budget, adult care, direct payment

• Walk away

  Yesterday I was called to an ‘emergency’. Well, as I don’t operate strictly in a crisis setting, it was more to act as a gatekeeper to the ‘real’ emergency services. In essence, did Mr A need to come into hospital? It wasn’t... Posted May 30 2008, 05:40 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: social issues, work, mental health, local authority, housing, hostel, homelessness

• Differences in Depression

  Breaking completely unsurprising news.. Men and women express different symptoms of depression according to a study from Cardiff. But there are some interesting points that I wasn’t aware of. The breakdown of the symptoms is quite interesting. According... Posted May 29 2008, 05:51 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: social issues, medication, mental health, psychiatry, women, sexism, gender, men, depression

• Into the ‘hoods

  Yesterday was European Neighbour’s Day. I know about this because I read The Guardian’s website! It was a timely then, that yesterday I spent a morning with the neighbour of one of the people that I work with. We’ve met a number of times... Posted May 28 2008, 05:44 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: residential care, social issues, older people, work, elderly, long-term care, neighbour, local, caring, friendliness, local solidarity, carer, neighbor, neigborhood

• Get out of Jail Free

  I haven’t had much experience of working within the criminal law system but I noticed an article via Mental Patient about Town from the Independent which was depressingly unsurprising when it states that there are a growing number of people who... Posted May 27 2008, 05:33 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: social work, social issues, older people, work, forensic, mental health review tribunal, MHRT, jail, prison

• Ageism - the ‘acceptable’ face of prejudice

  Social workers are supposed to be a liberal group. We are trained extensively in anti-discriminatory practice. I can’t imagine there are any social work courses in the country that don’t, at least explore, the implications of discrimination... Posted May 26 2008, 06:14 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: social care, social work, social issues, older people, work, carers, discrimination, ageism, old age, elders, rant, caregivers, prejudice, nhs

• Prevention before cure

  It is all very well for the government to call for better preventative care for older people. It is a noble aim - and a cost effective policy too. But I can’t help but be a little bit cynical. As long as the Fair Access to Care bands exist and restrict... Posted May 23 2008, 05:56 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: social care, social work, social issues, older people, work, elderly, uk, fair access to care, prevention, health care

• Asylum or Sanctuary?

  Who says words don’t matter? The Evening Standard reports on study from the Independent Asylum Commission which concludes that ‘asylum’ seekers should be renamed ’sanctuary’ seekers due to the negative connotations of the... Posted May 21 2008, 06:40 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: social issues, immigration, media, sanctuary, evening standard, language, asylum seeker

• Sticks and stones

  One of the leaflets I picked up, amongst the biros and the mousemats at Community Care Live event last week, was a publication by SHIFT - an organisation that I’d never heard of until last week. But they publish what I thought was an interesting... Posted May 19 2008, 06:46 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: social issues, mental health, discrimination, suicide, political correctness, media, suicide reporting, SHIFT, press, writing guide

• A decent place to live

  I seem to have had something of a ‘home’ themed week in one way or the other, so thought I’d round it off with a few thoughts about more general housing. In one of the previous teams I worked in, we had a basic line that a lot of the... Posted May 17 2008, 06:51 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: social care, social issues, work, local authority, social policy, housing stock, right to buy, uk, poor housing, housing, social housing, social justice

• Afterthought

  I just read this story on the Times website about an elderly couple that were found dead following a visit from social services as they feared that they would be separated due to differing care needs. There isn’t really much that can be said, apart... Posted May 15 2008, 09:02 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: social care, social work, social issues, older people, work, elderly, long-term care, wales

• The Right to (Free) State Care

  Brown announced that he was starting a six month consultation to make decisions about reforms to the ’social care’ system and in particular, its funding. The Wanless Social Care Review was produced back in 2006 and it examined ways of paying... Posted May 13 2008, 06:19 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: social care, social work, social issues, older people, work, local authority, politics, care funding, elderly

• Compare and contrast

  This article from The Guardian’s website compares the use of medication for older people with the safeguards in place when prescribing for children. It made a lot of sense to me. It is a part of the sensation that ageism permeates much of society... Posted May 08 2008, 06:09 PM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: social work, social issues, older people, work, socialwork, socialcare, ageism, old age

• No place like home

  I saw on the BBC yesterday that a man died in an EMI/Dementia registered nursing home in Hertfordshire. It was only a passing reference on the news but I thought I’d check the CSCI report of the home in question. This is a quote taken from the CSCI... Posted May 01 2008, 04:32 PM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: residential care, social care, social work, social issues, older people, dementia, work, nursing care

• Money matters

  New technology is a wonderful thing. Most of the time. Chip and pin? A fantastic way to improve security for bank cards and accounts. Giros always went missing anyway, much better the ‘direct payment’ with benefits going straight into bank... Posted Apr 29 2008, 10:24 PM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: social issues, older people, socialwork, finance, socialcare

• Who is watching?

  I see that the Alzheimer’s Society having published a book called ‘Enabling’ which provides models for observation in residential care facilities in order to improve care, as there was an article about it in Care and Health. I think... Posted Apr 29 2008, 06:16 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: residential care, social care, social work, social issues, older people, dementia

• Asylum

  It’s interesting that the meaning of Asylum as a place of safety is often lost amid political footballing of the term, backwards and forwards. I was trying to read through some work-related articles to get some more information for my current work... Posted Apr 22 2008, 08:24 AM by Fighting Monsters Filed under: social care, social issues, immigration, asylum