EVENT: Understand Autism Conference 2012

Where?

The Corn Exchange, Devizes

When

11am - 3.30pm, 21 November 2012

Wiltshire Council would like to invite you to the launch of an autism awareness campaign. Come along to find out what is happening and how you can help. Listen to key speakers to see how autism can affect people in different ways.

Network, gain advice and information about:

• Nine different providers that support people in their own homes
• different technology that can help a person be more independent
• employment support services
• Wiltshire college
• housing options available and how to access them
• local parent carer and user groups and organisations
• ...and many more!

Please book online to reserve your place

Elderly people 'staying at home for fear of falling'

A fear of falling is making many elderly people prisoners in their own homes, a survey has suggested.

More than one in five of the 500 people aged 75 and older, interviewed by the Women's Royal Voluntary Service charity, lived in fear of falling.

And 5% are so fearful that they will not leave their homes unaccompanied, the report found.

A third of them had suffered falls in recent years and a fifth of these said they had lost confidence as a result.

Full Article on BBC News

Carers Trust is the Co-operative Charity of the Year!

An announcement from the Carers Trust (a national organistion we are a network member of):


We are thrilled to tell you that we have won the Co-operative Charity of the Year.

This has been announced in the press today, with several of us attending a reveal event at the global international year of the co-operatives conference in Manchester. We have been desperate to tell you since we were told a two weeks ago but it was embargoed until today!

Thank you to everyone who voted for us and encouraged others to do so too. Across all the Co-operative businesses, we achieved 60% of the vote. More votes were cast by the Co-operative staff and members than ever before, and the Co-operative was overwhelmed by the number of people who fed back that they were carers themselves, had been a carer or knew a carer, which just goes to show what a universal issue caring is. It is real feedback on the strength of the issue and the appeal of the new charity across the country.

Mencap and Enable Scotland were the last charity of the year and, through a lot of hard work across their network working with the Co-operative staff, they raised an amazing £7.2m which has helped them to provide new services for an additional 26,000 people. It is now up to us to ensure we make the most of this incredible opportunity.

Universal credit will hit low-income families, charity warns

The government's flagship welfare policy could leave working people with less cash and increase the complexity of the benefits system, despite ministers' promises that it would be a simpler alternative with no losers, a report by an influential charity has said.

From next year new claimants will get a single payment instead of a series of different ones. The coalition's big idea is to put out-of-work benefits, tax credits and housing benefit into a single benefit for working-age people called the "universal credit".

This single credit, the biggest shake-up in benefits for a decade, will consist of a basic personal amount – with additional elements for disability, caring responsibilities, children and housing costs.

Full Article on Guardian Politics

EVENT: Wiltshire Involvement Network Public Meeting

Wednesday 14^th November 2012 - 10.30am – 1.00pm

10.00-10.15am Refreshments

to be held at the Melksham Assembly Hall,

Market Place, Melksham SN12 6ES

 Includes speakers from:

Great Western Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Wiltshire Council - hospital discharge planning within the community

Great Western Hospital - Podiatry Diagnostics & Outpatients

If you are concerned about or have experiences of:

·       Ambulance response times

·         Hospital discharge

·         Help to Live at Home

Contact the Wiltshire Involvement Network and we will investigate.

For more information contact Lucie Woodruff on 01380 871800 or email

luciewoodruff.wsun@btconnect.com.

Please confirm your attendance either by contacting Tracie Clark on 01380 871800 or by emailing winadmin.wsun@btconnect.com.

Mental illness 'biggest UK health challenge' - Miliband

The problem of mental illness in the UK is the "biggest unaddressed health challenge of our age", Labour leader Ed Miliband is to say in a speech.

It "blights the lives of millions", costing UK business £26bn and the NHS an extra £10bn a year, he will say.

Mr Miliband wants to give patients the same legal right to mental health therapies as physical healthcare.

Full Article on BBC News

Lamb scraps 100% personal budgets target

The government has scrapped its target for councils to move all service users in the community on to personal budgets by April 2013, care minister Norman Lamb announced today.

Lamb said he had agreed a new target of having 70% of users on personal budgets by the same date, following talks with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services.

Lamb said personal budgets were not suitable for everyone, but stressed that the 70% target was a staging post and should not be seen as a ceiling.

Full Article on Community Care

EVENT: Dementia Awareness & Support

DEMENTIA AWARENESS AND SUPPORT

A workshop for the community of Chippenham exploring the nature of dementia and what you can do to support those with dementia in your community or family.

Date: Tuesday November 6^th

Time: 10.00 a.m. to 1.00 p.m.

Venue: The Rotary Club of Chippenham hall in Station

     Road, Chippenham

Three quarters of a million people have dementia in Britain. Most of us are going to be touched by dementia through our families, friends, neighbours, parishioners, customers, ourselves …..

What is dementia? How can you provide support in a positive way? How can people who live with dementia  have the best quality of life possible?

Please telephone 01761 233472 to book a place

or e-mail Anne at seechange@dementiatraining.co.uk

as places are limited.

£50m set aside for dementia patients

A new fund of £50m to create calming environments for people with dementia, which aid treatment by helping sufferers to avoid confusion, will be announced on Thursday by the health secretary Jeremy Hunt.

The money will be available to NHS trusts and local authorities working in partnership with social care providers to help tailor hospitals and care homes to the needs of those with dementia.

Hunt's aides claim that the announcement puts the care of sufferers at the heart of his priorities in a week when abusive workers from Winterbourne View care home are sentenced for assaulting elderly and frail patients.

Full Article on Guardian Society

EVENT: Later Life Planning seminar

SEMINAR

Awdry, Bailey & Douglas Solicitors invite you to attend a seminar which addresses the issues surrounding later life planning and how you or your loved ones may be affected should long term care be needed.  

The following seminar has been arranged at the following location;

Please arrive 20 minutes beforehand

Wednesday 21 November 2012  

   10.30am - 12.30pm

at

Rawlings Suite, Marsh Farm Hotel,

 Royal Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire   SN4 8ER

~ Light refreshments will be available ~

HOW DO I BOOK A PLACE?

Spaces at the seminars are limited and EARLY booking is advised.  To RESERVE a FREE place, or to express an interest in further seminars, please;

email: seminars@awdrys.co.uk or telephone 01380 722311 or email: www.abdcare.co.uk  

Please advise us if disabled access is required.