Former GMTV presenter, Fiona Phillips, last night revealed her personal experience of the bureaucracy and shortages that stand in the way of support for unpaid carers.
Channel 4’s Dispatches tells the story of how Fiona fought to get help for her 74-year-old father, recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, only to find there simply isn’t enough social care to go round. Prompted by this shocking revelation, Fiona commissioned a YouGov survey for Dispatches into the lives of unpaid carers of Alzheimer’s sufferers in Britain. The survey concluded what Phillips describes as a: “Scandalous reality of families around Britain left alone to shoulder the burden of care for their loved ones”.
But the most striking result of the survey is that two thirds of unpaid carers would like training. What an opportunity for Local Authorities to both bridge the social care gap and support those who can and want to care for their own. Hopefully, most Local Authorities are coming round to the idea that training doesn’t have to bust the budget: e-learning and blended learning cost a fraction of traditional training methods – and it’s not as if the UK would be the first to train unpaid carers!
What Fiona doesn’t mention in her report is the results of an international research project funded by the EU, by Eurofamcare, three years ago. Commissioned to provide governments with examples of good and innovative practices in the provision of services to support family carers of elderly people, the report provides many examples of countries who have been training unpaid carers for years.
ElderWorld would like to point out that, having saved £6bn on unpaid carers, perhaps the UK Government should invest in training family and friends to provide quality care at home.
ELDERWORLD
Set up in 2000 by a group of social entrepreneurs, ElderWorld’s team of skilled experts have the experience to provide a quality series of products and services customised for any provider of elder care. With expertise in e-governance and bespoke e-learning programmes for professional carers as well as friends and family, ElderWorld will support any organisation determined to provide the best care for older people. A further division of ElderWorld, known as CareWorld, provides services and ICT hardware to its healthcare customers. Organisations engaged with ElderWorld include BUPA, other groups of care homes, Local Authorities’
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