Training keeps dogs up to date with new ring tones

Hearing Dogs for Deaf People has been given a range of phones and telecommunications equipment by BT to update its Buckinghamshire training centre.

The new phones will be used to train dogs to recognise and respond to the wider range of modern ring tones and alert their owners.

Hearing dogs can alert their deaf recipient to a range of sounds including the doorbell, cooker timer, alarm clock, smoke alarm and telephone.  

BT offered to re-equip The Grange training centre, near Princes Risborough, so that the charity’s dogs can learn the specific sounds that they will hear in their new homes. 

Philip Biggs, access and inclusion manager at Hearing Dogs for Deaf People, said: “The support we’ve received from BT has been fantastic. Hearing Dogs for Deaf People was launched 30 years ago at Crufts. Since then, we’ve become a centre of excellence in training hearing dogs and have created more than 1,600 life-changing partnerships.”

BT has also agreed to set up a Try Before You Buy centre at the training centre, enabling deaf visitors to test BT’s phone equipment to make sure it is suitable for their needs.

Young aspiring disabled drivers on track at Donington Park

For 15 year-old George Coppen from Derby, an Olympic Torchbearer on 29th June, it’s been an amazing few weeks and he was one of several hundred young people on 14th July to have their first driving experience, at the Get Going Live! driving day at Donington Park.

The experience for young people with disabilities and anyone newly-disabled was an opportunity to get advice on the best car and adaptations to suit their special needs. As well as a chance to get more information on available schemes, find a suitable instructor and get vital, safety information such as how to position the driving seat and seat belt.

For anyone who missed Saturday’s event there are two more this year – at the Yorkshire Event Centre, Harrogate on 28th July and TRL, Wokingham on 11th August. To register for these events www.getgoingnow.org

George Coppen, 15, from Derby behind the wheel for the first time

Agreement to improve safety for adults at risk

New procedures launched today aim to improve communication between the different professionals responsible for safeguarding vulnerable adults in the West Midlands.

The initiative follows the publication last week of the White Paper on Social Care. It involves a number of organisations including West Mercia Police, NHS West Midlands and the Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service. They will be working together more regularly to promote safer communities, preventing harm and abuse. They will also deal with suspected or actual cases of abuse. 

The chief executive of the Social Care Institute for Excellence Andrea Sutcliffe, SCIE, said: “Following similar work in London, we wanted to use that good practice to protect adults further afield. We hope that more areas will follow suit shortly.”

Sandra Ashton-Jones from Wolverhampton’s Safeguarding Adults Team, and the chair of the working group which developed the new policies said: “There wasn’t anything wrong with the way that individual areas were doing things beforehand, but we want to ensure that people across the West Midlands can be confident that the way they will be treated in one area will be the same as another. ”

Increase in adult social care complaints to Ombudsmen

The Local Government Ombudsmen, LGO, has reported a 24 per cent rise in complaints and enquiries about adult social care 2011/12. In their Annual Report 2011/12 – Delivering public value, complaints and enquiries rose from 1,820 in 2010/11 to 2,256 in 2011/12. 

 In one case a disabled man had to wait 18 months for a walk-in shower to be installed. The Ombudsman recommended that the council review its arrangements with registered social landlords for processing disabled facilities grants.

In another the LGO found that care provided for an elderly man who lived on his own was poor and inconsistent – and there were at least five days when no care was provided at all. The care provider apologised, paid compensation, and put new procedures in place. 

 The LGO considers complaints from service users of all types of adult social care – whether they pay for their own care or use money provided by a council, whether the care provider is a council or a private business, and whether they receive services in a care home, their own home or somewhere else, such as a day centre.

The LGO’s new free leaflet, How to complain about a care home or care in your home, explains what to do if someone has a complaint about adult social care.

 Dr Jane Martin, Local Government Ombudsman and chair of the Commission for Local Administration in England, the governing body for the LGO scheme, said: “The case studies in our annual report show that the Ombudsman can resolve complaints which affect the day-to-day experience of citizens – but many of the complaints should not have come to us in the first place and we are doing more to feed back lessons learned to councils and other bodies in jurisdiction to improve public administration and local public services.”

Dr Jane Martin, Local Government Ombudsman and chair of the Commission for Local Administration in England

College says measures would help social workers to take on new roles

The government's White Paper on care and support will strengthen the position of social workers as they take on the challenge of new roles in adult social care, according to the College of Social Work.

The college had previously called for social workers to be “liberated from the care management strait-jacket” to take a more creative, problem-solving approach to supporting users and carers.

“This White Paper clearly acknowledges the importance of social work as new ways of delivering personalised services continue to emerge in adult social care,” said Bernard Walker the chair of The College of Social Work adults faculty.

“We will be working with our members and their employers to ensure that the recommendations of the White Paper on the value of social work with adults are taken on board.  If the ‘one size fits all’ approach in social care is to be ended and adults who need support are to be helped to flourish in their own communities, social workers will have a vital role in making it happen.

“The White Paper says that some of the ideas in the Munro review of child protection fit adult social work too. We agree, so we expect the government to step back and trust the professionals. We look forward to the appointment of a chief social worker and of principal social workers in every adult social services department.”

Adult safeguarding boards will be put on a statutory footing and local authorities will have a duty to investigate cases of suspected abuse.

Social care proposals only a start – RCN

Commenting on today’s publication of the Social Care White Paper and the “progress report” on social care funding, Royal College of Nursing chief executive and general secretary, Dr Peter Carter, said: 

“While there is much to welcome in these proposals, nurses will be particularly disappointed that the government has failed to tackle the critical issue of social care funding. Accepting the need for a cap on the amount individuals contribute to costs without any timescale for implementation will be cold comfort to service users and patients. It also stores up major problems for the future.

 “It is nursing staff who are currently dealing with the pressures of delayed transfers between hospital and community settings. We are particularly concerned that at the moment many people face a ‘revolving door’ in care. 

For some this means ending up back in hospital soon after discharge as the support simply does not exist to care for them properly in the community.”

Care reforms – to fix a system that is fragmented

The Care and Support White Paper, together with the draft Care and Support Bill also published today, sets out how the social care system will be transformed “from a service that reacts to crises to one that focuses on prevention and is built around the needs and goals of people.”

The reforms aim to ensure people will get the care and support they need, so they don’t reach crisis point, and the draft Care and Support Bill “consolidates a mess of different laws to, for the first time, create a single modern statute for adult care and support.”

The government says it would consider a voluntary scheme that would allow people to choose to take up a government social insurance scheme, making paid contributions to ensure their care and accommodation costs would be capped. 

The report also commits to introducing a Universal Deferred Payments scheme to ensure no one will be forced to sell their home to pay for care in their lifetime. 

The health secretary Andrew Lansley said: “Too often people who need care don’t know who or where to go to, don’t know what care they will get and don’t know how it will be paid for. 

“Our plans will bring the most comprehensive overhaul of social care since 1948 and will mean that people get the care and support that they need to be safe and to live well so they don’t reach a crisis point.

“We agree that the principles of the Dilnot recommendations – financial protection through capped costs and an extended means-test – would be the right basis for any new funding model. 

“However, any proposal which includes extra public spending needs to be considered alongside other spending priorities, which of course include the demographic pressures on the social care service itself. The right place to do this is at the next Spending Review.”