VIP Singers Group

When:   Every Saturday morning

Time:    10.30am – 12.30pm

7th September to 17^th December

Where:

South Wing Committee Room

St Thomas’ Hospital

Westminster Bridge Road,

London SE1 7EH

07503 330375

Everyone is welcome No experience is required.

Come for fun!

Street theatre show highlights modern loneliness epidemic

A pop-up street theatre performance this week will focus on the epidemic of loneliness and the growing isolation of older people.

The Loneliness Street Cabaret, an outdoor street performance from the Beautiful Mess Theatre Company, is showing from Tuesday to Thursday (4 to 7 October) as part of the month-long Age UK Lambeth’s Celebrating Age Festival in London.

The theatre performance, which takes place in different public spaces across the south London borough, is inspired by the fact that loneliness is increasing at a time when our our cities are becoming ever more crowded. The show has been developed using anecdotes, opinions and experiences of older people in south London.

According to research highlighted by the Campaign to End Loneliness, more than half (51%) of all people aged 75 and over live alone, while two-fifths all older people (about 3.9 million) say the television is their main company.

Beautiful Mess creative producer Chloe Osborne says the theatre company was inspired to create the project following a Guardian article about loneliness. Osborne adds: “There was a particular article which initially inspired artistic director Kati Francis to create the work. The article raised the question of how it’s possible to have this rise in loneliness amid an ever-increasing population. In particular we wanted to explore why people can’t – or don’t – connect anymore.”

Between May and August this year, the Loneliness Street Cabaret was performed more than 200 times in south London, Liverpool, Devon and Italy. The two-person performance involves an eclectic mix of puppetry, live music and physical comedy, with audience interaction, “in the best tradition of street theatre”, says Osborne. Audience members are invited to help – or hinder – one of the characters, a businessman who is too busy on his mobile phone to engage with others, including another character, a woman who makes him think twice about his actions.

The Loneliness Street Cabaret, funded by Arts Council England and supported by the Big Lottery Fund and Wandsworth, Greenwich and Lambeth councils, specialises in touring its outdoor work to arts festivals and “overlooked municipal areas”. Its mission is to “make theatre that champions the voices of the unheard” and promote positive social change. Productions are developed in collaboration with the community and have a social issue at their heart. Founder and artistic director Kati Francis says the approach “enables multiple and diverse voices to inform our professional work”.

Development of the performance involved collaborating with older people in Lambeth, community workers and care professionals through Age UK Lambeth. Development took around six months. Osborne explains: “Research began with some informal visits with older people at a community centre and a local care home, spending time with people and having conversations. This developed this into small group workshops with thoughts about archetypal people who might be isolated; how they behave … the characters developed from that.”

Older people, says Osborne, also raised fears about the rise of loneliness among the younger generation, a concern highlighted in research from the Mental Health Foundation. Osborne says: “What came from the older generation was that they felt most sorry for the generation growing up now, because people were choosing to isolate themselves – through technology.”

The shows are performed in public spaces, from outside tube stations to public squares, in the hope that the shared experience of performance will spark the audience to have conversations and take action based on the show’s themes. Osborne says the aim is to provoke people to consider the issues highlighted by the performance: “It’s about your local community and how you fit within it, but also about what your responsibility is for ensuring that others belong in it too.”

The fact that the action always takes place in public spaces, says Osborne, means it might attract people who do not usually go to the theatre or participate in the arts. She adds: “It’s performance provocation in overlooked public spaces. It is about really prompting people to explore their own feelings and emotional responses and think about their community.” At a time when many public areas are being privatised, and public green spaces are on the wane, the theatre group is keen to champion and use the public shared environment.

Kim Connell, Age UK Lambeth services manager, adds: “As people get older, they don’t choose to be isolated but their circumstances change with age. Their circle of friends gets smaller and many would rather not turn up at an event without a friend, so people just don’t go out.”

Connell says volunteer befriending schemes, such as those run by various Age UK branches and other community groups, are one way to prevent social isolation. She would like this week’s performances to throw some much-needed attention on a modern epidemic. Connell adds: “I hope people leave with an awareness that isolation is an issue and that they think differently about other people in their community; they might have a neighbour that no one ever speaks to.”

Cambridge House Law Centre – Employment and Discrimination Advice

Advice is by appointment only and is available solely for people who live or work in the London Borough of Southwark.

The one off advice sessions are held on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons from 14:00 with four slots at each session.

How to book an appointment:

• Call in person and speak to the Law Centre receptionist;
• Telephone the Law Centre on 020 7358 7025
• Email the Law Centre receptionist: [email protected]

Session dates for 2016

Tuesday 4th October

Tuesday 18th October

Tuesday 1st November

Tuesday 15th November

Wednesday 30th November

Wednesday 14th December

‘We had no choice’: number of elderly filial carers on the rise in UK

For more than a decade, 71-year-old Harry Seymour has been the sole carer for his 106-year-old mother, Edith. Divorced and childless, Seymour moved in with his mother in 2005. Four years later, she was diagnosed with dementia.

“I didn’t expect to be my mother’s carer at all, and certainly not at the age I am now,” he said, “but there was no choice. We were a very close family but they’re all dead now. I don’t consider that I’ve sacrificed the years I’ve spent looking after mum though; it’s the natural thing to do.”

The number of centenarians in the UK has quadrupled in the past 30 years, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics. In the past decade alone, the number of people reaching the age of 100 has increased by 71%. The number of people over 90 has nearly trebled over the past 30 years.

The rise means there are increasing numbers of very old people being cared for by their children – themselves at an age at which they might have expected to be cared for, rather than to care for others.

Elderly filial carers are an under-researched group, but academics at University College London studying the over-50 population of England have found evidence that about one in 20 of those aged over 50 are caring for a grandparent, parent or parent-in-law.

According to separate research by Age UK, a third of the UK’s 6 million carers are aged 65 and over, and the number of carers aged 75 and over has increased by 35% since 2001. Over the past seven years, the number of carers aged 80 and over has increased from 300,000 to 417,000 – and continues to rise, the study found.

Dr Alisoun Milne, a professor in social gerontology and social work at the University of Kent, said elderly filial carers were a growing but under-recognised group. “Elderly, frail sons and daughters looking after very elderly and very frail parents are a neglected cohort,” she said. “But it’s crucial that we start to find out more about them, otherwise their distinctive needs won’t be met and both child and parent will end up in crisis.”

Louise Mark, an older carers policy officer for the Carers Trust, agreed. “This is the new sandwich generation: elderly ‘children’ who might still be both paying for their own children to go through university and their mortgages, but having to take early retirement to care for parents in their 90s and older.”

Dr Debora Price, the director of the Manchester Institute for Collaborative Research on Ageing at the University of Manchester, said: “This phenomenon is likely to grow, and of course as these carers age, they also become more likely to have a spouse who may need care, or to start to encounter health problems themselves.

“And while they are still relatively young, they also face competing pressures to continue in the paid workforce under the government’s extending working lives agenda and with rises in the state pension age. But they are also expected to – and do – care for their grandchildren.”

Price points to research (pdf) showing that eight out of 10 grandmothers in England with a grandchild under 16 provide childcare. At the same time, 28% of grandparents with a grandchild under 16 have a parent who is still alive. “As those parents age, their needs potentially become greater,” Price said. “At the same time, their children – already grandparents – are ageing too, while also being expected to work and save.”

Jo Moriarty, a senior research fellow and deputy director at the Social Care Workforce Research Unit at King’s College London, has begun researching this group. She said she recently met a woman in her 70s who was developing dementia while struggling to care for her mother, who had had dementia for years.

“Support for carers is predicated on carers not having health problems of their own,” she said. “There’s a lot of unintentional discrimination against older carers, even though they need more help than younger carers.”

Carers’ A&E visits can be preventable, says report

Their snapshot online survey also found that one in five used A&E because they could not get hold of a GP or district nurse.

The charity said a lack of local care and support services was contributing to a rise in A&E visits.

There are about 6.5m unpaid carers in the UK looking after a family member.

The Carers UK report, Pressure Points: carers and the NHS, is published as the NHS prepares for a rise in hospital admissions and A&E visits during the winter months.

It is based on data from two surveys – one on how carers use emergency services from 2015 and another, from 2016, on support for carers after their family member is discharged from hospital.

Avoidable visits

From 5,000 people who responded to the first survey, just over 1,000 said they had called 999 or A&E in the previous 12 months because of health concerns for the person for whom they cared.

While more than 60% of carers said their use of A&E could not have been prevented, about one-third said the emergency admission could have been avoided.

They said better support for the person they care for and more local support for them as carer would have helped.

When asked about their relative’s discharge from hospital, more than half of carers said it came too soon and the right support wasn’t in place at home.

Helena Herklots, chief executive of Carers UK, said the current situation was piling more pressure on an already stretched NHS.

“With more and more families picking up caring responsibilities and older people with care needs being encouraged to stay at home for longer, a step-change is urgently needed to boost investment in community services and involve carers in decisions about the support they, and their loved ones, need to manage at home.”

A Department of Health spokesman said the government was determined to make health and social care more integrated.

“Local authorities are being given more money – up to £3.5bn extra – for adult social care by 2019/20 and by 2020 we will be investing an extra £10bn a year so the NHS can introduce its own plan for the future and help fewer people go to hospital in the first place.”

He said the government was also committed to giving everyone access to routine GP appointments at evenings and weekends by 2020.

DWP scraps retesting for chronically ill sickness benefits claimants

Chronically sick benefit claimants will no longer be required to prove they are still ill every six months, the work and pensions secretary has announced.

Employment support allowance will now continue automatically for those who have lifelong, severe health conditions with no prospect of improvement, Damian Green said.

The testing process, which includes reassessing conditions every six months, has come under intense criticism for failing some of the most seriously ill and disabled.

The move was welcomed by the former work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, who said he resigned over concerns he could not push the reforms through.

Green said the change was being made because it was pointless to repeatedly test claimants who are not going to get better. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I believe in a welfare state where you have got to be hard-headed, but you shouldn’t be hard-hearted.

“We want the welfare state to work for everyone, just as we want the economy to work for everyone, and there are a group of people for whom constant reassessment is pointless and which does increase their stress and anxiety levels.”

Green said it would be a retrograde move to scrap the tests for all ESA claimants, because for the “vast majority of people, work actually helps them”.

But the reforms will help end the anxiety and financial insecurity that claimants may have felt, said Green, who will unveil the plans at the Conservative party conference.

The criteria will be drawn up with health professionals but people with autism and illnesses such as severe Huntington’s or a congenital heart condition are likely to qualify for continuous payments without reassessment.

Green said: “We are building a country that works for everyone – not just the privileged few. A key part of that is making sure that all those who are able to work are given the support and the opportunity to do so. But it also means ensuring that we give full and proper support to those who can’t.

“That includes sweeping away any unnecessary stress and bureaucracy – particularly for the most vulnerable in society.

“If someone has a disease which can only get worse then it doesn’t make sense to ask them to turn up for repeated appointments. If their condition is not going to improve, it is not right to ask them to be tested time after time. So we will stop it.”

The reform will be unveiled at the four-day Conservative party conference, which begins in Birmingham on Sunday.

Debbie Abrahams, shadow work and pensions secretary, said: “As ever with this government though, the devil is in the detail. While the end to repeated assessments will be a relief to those that have been affected, this announcement falls far short of the fundamental shift to a more holistic, person-centred approach we so desperately need.

“Too many sick and disabled people will remain subject to this harmful, ineffective assessment. We will continue to push the Tories for a better deal for disabled people.”

Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of the MS Society, said: “This is a victory for common sense. Frequent reassessments for people with progressive conditions such as MS are too often a waste of time and money. They can leave people with uncertainty and fear of having their support taken away.

“We are therefore delighted that the government have listened to our concerns and have agreed to stop reassessments – albeit for only some ESA claimants.

“This is good news, but there’s still a lot more to do for people with MS, including improving the assessment for ESA and calling for inappropriate reassessments to stop for other vital benefits, like PIP.”

Duncan Smith, whose resignation from the role of work and pensions secretary was seen as an attack on the-then leadership of David Cameron and George Osborne, told the Today programme he completely agreed with the changes.

“We worked to change this process, it was one we inherited and it just functioned badly on this area,” he said.

Smith said he hoped the change formed one part of wider reforms that would see the Department for Work and Pensions and Department of Health collaborate.

“The reason I resigned … was because I felt the disability demand that was in the budget would have absolutely punched a hole straight through what would have been quite a progressive reform, so I welcome this announcement, I think it’s the right thing to do,” he said.

Mark Atkinson, chief executive at disability charity Scope, said: “In the short term this will be a welcome change for some disabled people, and it’s good to see the government recognising that the work capability assessment needs wider reform.

“We’d like to see the government going much further and starting a consultation with disabled people on the wholesale reform of the fitness-for-work test.

“Disabled people are pushing hard to get jobs but still face many barriers to find work and thrive in employment. The test should be the first step in identifying those barriers so the right support can be put in place to help people get back to work.”

Your Health, Your Story – call out for Southwark residents who would like to share their health story on film

Do you have three or more long term conditions?

We are looking for people who have three or more of the following conditions:

• diabetes
• kidney disease
• asthma
• COPD
• mental health needs
• heart disease or stroke

Do you have risk factors that could affect your health?

We are looking for people who have two or more of the following risk factors:

• high blood pressure
• high cholesterol
• a high HbA1c reading (pre- diabetes)
• overweight or obese (BMI >25)
• smoker
• currently on pain medication

If the answer to both questions is yes then we need your help!

If you’ are interested in taking part in this new initiative you will be visited by a researcher at your home or somewhere that is convenient for you to talk about your life and your health (within the next two weeks). The researchers will make a short film to capture your experience which will be used at a large training session for GPs and practice nurses and will be put on the NHS Southwark Clinical Commissioning Group Website.

You will be paid £20 for your time.

If you would like to know more or you would like to take part please do get in touch.

Laura Brannon

Membership and Engagement Manager

NHS Southwark Clinical Commissioning Group

E: [email protected]

T: 020 7525 7507 | 07770 990 378

Postal Address: 1st Floor, Hub 5, PO Box 64529 London SE1P 5LX

Poorest pensioners to lose hundreds of pounds a year in ‘new bedroom tax’

They are poised to lose at least £300 a year because their homes will be deemed to be “underoccupied”, slashing their incomes or forcing them to move – away from family and friends, or to flats that are unsuitable for older people.

In some cases, the financial pain will be greater – one housing association has identified pensioners in part of the North who are set to lose a staggering £1,700 a year.

Over time, hundreds of thousands of pensioners will be affected by the little-noticed measure, which extends tough benefit restrictions in the private rented sector to council and housing association homes.

It has been condemned by Labour MP Frank Field, who told The Independent: “Having previously been protected from the viciousness of the bedroom tax, large numbers of poor pensioners now look set to have their living standards cut by the Government’s new strategy.

“My fear is that the great success over the past two decades in countering pensioner poverty could begin to unravel if this stealthy strategy goes ahead in its current form.”

And Caroline Abrahams, charity director of Age UK, said: “Imposing the cap on older tenants will not only cause them anxiety and distress, it is also pointless given the lack of affordable housing options available to them.

“It will create hardship without any significant financial gains for the Government.”

The original bedroom tax was one of the coalition government’s most controversial policies, cutting housing benefit for social housing tenants – but not pensioners – with spare rooms.

Ministers argued that forcing “underoccupying” households to move would free up larger homes for families living in cramped conditions, as well as save £465m a year.

However, it became clear that the vast majority had no smaller homes to move to and suffered steep benefit cuts. One woman confronted David Cameron, telling him: “People have died from the bedroom tax.”

Now housing associations and campaigners for older people fear the same harsh impact from the new measure, which comes into force in April 2018, for new tenancies starting after April this year.

It flows from then-Chancellor George Osborne’s announcement that housing benefit in social housing will be limited to the level of the Local Housing Allowance (LHA), the cap used in the private rented sector.

Crucially, the LHA is calculated – like the removal of the so-called “spare-room subsidy” – on the basis of household size, rather than the size of the property.

That means a single pensioner, or a couple, living in a two-bedroom home will have their housing benefit capped at the one-bedroom LHA rate.

Housing associations say that, in London and the South-east, the impact may not be severe, because the one-bedroom LHA rate is likely to be higher than the existing social housing rent charge.

But across the rest of the country – where private rents are cheaper – the LHA cap is set much lower, in line with private rents, threatening tenants with big benefit cuts.

Riverside Housing Association, which manages properties in most Northern cities, estimates that a quarter of its pensioner tenants will be hit, losing an average of £300 a year.

However, that figure masks many tenants who will lose much more – including some in Carlisle faced with a loss of around £34 per week, or more than £1,700 per year.

Hugh Owen, Riverside’s director of strategy, said the only option for many older people would be to move, yet smaller properties were in scarce supply.

Furthermore, those smaller homes – often upper-floor flats without lifts – were completely unsuitable for pensioners, who also wanted family members to stay, had carers or needed separate bedrooms.

Mr Owen said: “The coalition government was at pains to protect older tenants from the impact of the removal of the ‘spare room subsidy’, yet the introduction of LHA caps will have a similar effect.

“Over time, this could affect up to a quarter of our elderly tenants, including couples living in modestly sized homes such as two bedroom bungalows.

“Most will have to take this on the chin, with very limit opportunities to downsize or earn additional income. That’s why this feels like a ‘backdoor bedroom tax’.”

Housing associations will lobby ministers at the Conservative Party conference, starting tomorrow, in the hope of forcing a U-turn before the measure comes in.

In answer to a parliamentary question tabled by Mr Field, Caroline Nokes, the benefits minister, did not dispute that pensioners would be affected.

She said: “This measure will be introduced in April 2018, where new tenancies have been taken out or existing tenancies renewed from 1 April 2016. Full impact and equality impact assessments will be undertaken in due course.”

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman said: “We have had to take difficult decisions to stabilise our economy and bring down the spiralling Housing Benefit bill.

“The reality is, private renters have been paid at the LHA rate since 2008, so this change restores fairness to the system for those who use it as well as those who pay for it.

“Nobody will be affected for another two years, and by 2020 we will have provided over £1bn to local authorities to support people transitioning to our reforms.”

Lack of community services to support carers is piling pressure on NHS emergency care

Carers identified serious difficulties accessing primary and community support services, with 1 in 5 saying they had no option but to take their loved one to A&E because it was impossible to see a district nurse or a GP out of hours, and 1 in 10 saying they didn’t know where else to go.

The report, Pressure Points, found that of the 4 in 10 carers who have taken their loved one to A&E in the past 12 months believe their admission could have been prevented. Carers believed these admissions could have been prevented with more (55%) or higher quality support (50%) for the person they care for, more local support for them as a carer (32%) or access to a district nurse (25%).

A reduction in the provision of local care and support services is contributing to a rise in A&E visits and hospital admissions, as families say they have nowhere else to turn. Indeed, there were over 500,000 more visits to A&E in the first quarter of 2016 than the same period last year.

This growing demand on the NHS is forcing many people to be discharged from hospital too early, often without the right support in place at home and without proper consultation with their family. Over half of carers (58%) said that the person they care for had been discharged from hospital too early; with 12% saying their loved one had to be readmitted at a result. Not only is this counterproductive for the health of the person being cared for but it also causes undue stress and anxiety for families and friends who are often unprepared to take on caring responsibilities or coordinate aftercare themselves.

A lack of community health and care support is not only resulting in more people being admitted – or readmitted – to hospital, but it is also leading to many people having to stay in hospital for longer than necessary as they wait for an appropriate care package to be put in place to enable them to go home. What’s more, the cost to the NHS of delays in discharging older patients alone is £820 million a year; with the number of delayed discharges, and therefore costs, continuing to rise.

Carers UK is calling for:

• A Carer Friendly NHS programme, introducing a new duty on the NHS to identify carers and promote their health and wellbeing, as well as policies which ensure carers are involved in decision making around hospital admissions and discharges, and the adoption of a Carer Passport scheme
• Increased funding for social care, with the Government putting in place a sustainable funding settlement for social care and ring fencing funding for carer breaks
• Greater access to social care and health care in the community, including looking to new technologies to facilitate virtual health consultations and access to electronic patient records
• Greater support from primary care services to better help carers look after their own health, including annual health checks for carers and free flu jabs

To download your copy of Carers UK’s Pressure points: carers and the NHS report

Carers in the ‘sandwich generation’ forced to act as nurses

The cohort of people performing these roles has expanded by over quarter in the last five years, according to Macmillan Cancer Support.

They charity estimates they now form part of a 110,000-strong “sandwich generation” of carers who are faced with looking after both a parent with cancer and their own children, almost nine in ten of whom are also juggling a job.

The new report was based on research among almost 900 cancer carers and found that many suffer mental health problems such as anxiety and depression.

Cancer carers are now spending an average of 17.5 hours a week looking after someone with the illness, the report found, an increase of 2.5 hours since 2011.

The proportion of carers now involved in helping with healthcare tasks, such as giving medication, has also gone to 38 per cent from 28 per cent in 2011.

Lynda Thomas, Macmillan chief executive, said: “Too often this sandwich generation of carers find themselves pulled in every direction by a physically and emotionally draining juggling act that can cause their finances to come under pressure, their working lives to suffer and their own health to bear the brunt.”