What can you expect from our campaigns in 2017?

I realise its down to awareness both of yourself and and your surroundings .We each are born with a set pattern of infinitely variable characteristics in our thoughts and actions that make up our personalities and then we have the “Higher Self ” which , if we are wise , controls the basic inbuilt personality so that it acts in a more humane and humanitarian manner , which again depends on what you have learned in a previous life . This can go the other way and you become more evil/crafty/sly /devious for material gain in this world which is of zero value in the next ( you cant take it with you ) , you then leave this material world for a more spiritual one where the long term aim is to bring us all together with an entirely “Universal ” outlook of good and sacrifice for our fellow beings , in doing so you become even more wiser knowing that PEACE and LOVE transcends all not constant war and strife for gain in this world . Your body doesn’t live forever only your spirit.

Better social care [which is many times cheaper than hospital treatment] will also help to keep people fitter and healthier thus staving off the need to go into hospital in many cases.

A cousin of mine is a district nurse [or whatever they are called these days] and provides domiciliary care for lots of elderly and ill people in a cluster of villages giving injections, attending to wounds and changing dressings, post-operation supervision, organising aids and adaptations, taking blood samples and doing routine tests, checking medication, ante- and post-natal support, and reporting back to the doctors on the condition of their patients. Apparently there are not so many of these nurses nowadays but they are an invaluable resource taking a load off the primary care services and the clinics and hospitals. She is well into her sixties now and still enjoys doing the work and has no desire to give up at some arbitrary age limit.

The other need is for non-medical daily care, bathing, feeding, cleaning, and other duties for the growing number of people who cannot look after themselves properly. These services are vastly overstretched but if the funding were made available I think they could be expanded quite quickly to cover more people more effectively and give more hours to each client – much quicker than trying to recruit and train legions of hospital nurses whose skills are not being used to best effect if they are looking after wards half full of people who could be discharged.

This is getting quite urgent. The post-war baby-boomers are approaching the point where they will start to impact on the health and social services in a big way. Many of them have retired, or will be retiring, to areas of the country where services are thinly spread, where numbers are growing, and where the local authorities are under-funded because the council tax yield is low relative to the demands placed upon them.

One of the things the government could do at a stroke, if necessary at the expense of other controversial capital projects, is to wipe out the Private Finance Initiative [PFI] debts of the hospital trusts and free their governors from all the worry these debts cause so they can run their hospitals with patient care uppermost in their minds instead of a debt-laden balance sheet. This might attract better quality governors and senior health care managers.

Your first point is so obvious one wonders why there are repeated cuts in social care in the community. And I suspect we do need more care homes – or will need, certainly – and they will cost both to provide and staff.

One thing does occur: the increasingly large numbers of people in our service industries come from the EU.

Ian – Given the outcome of a recent poll I deliberately abstained from mentioning that point in your second paragraph but it is indeed highly pertinent in the present situation. I was hoping – with not much hard evidence to support it at the moment – that the combination of (a) a rising home population, and (b) the reduced labour demands of government, commerce and industry, would supply, numerically at least, sufficient people to boost social care in line with rising demand.

I’m sorry but things aren’t quite that black and white. Imagine you are an elderly person say 80+. You have been reasonably healthy up to date but you have a bad fall and are admitted to hospital. While there you are assessed by health and social care staff who feel it is unsafe for you to return to the home you have lived in for say 50 years and is full of memories for you and you have a social support system around you at that address (church, neighbours etc). How long would you need to come to terms with that huge change in your life which has come out of the blue. Who really wants to go into care -at any age? Also, how long should we give you (and hopefully your family) to find a care home you like and that you can afford (if you have more than £21k capital which includes property)? A week, a month, two months ………..how long? This is probably going to be the last place you call home. Will you be happy to sit in front a tv surrounded by other people and unable to choose which programme to have blaring out at you: happy to have staff provide your personal care while they chat to each other about their families and issues without looking at you or talking to you: i.e. having no control over your life. How do you and your family judge which home will suit you? Is it near to where you or any family member live? Your choices are going to be very limited to meet any such critiera. We all need to think what we would want if we were in that situation.