Below is a compilation of  video interviews recorded at the recent children’s services sharing learning event in Birmingham. Speakers from Birmingham City Council include: Colin Tucker, service director of children’s social care services; Owen Pearson, head of service; Ray Chim, performance and information manager, and Yvette Waide, head of service, care management. Following the video [...]

Below is a compilation of  video interviews recorded at the recent children’s services sharing learning event in Birmingham. Speakers from Birmingham City Council include: Colin Tucker, service director of children’s social care services; Owen Pearson, head of service; Ray Chim, performance and information manager, and Yvette Waide, head of service, care management. Following the video [...]

Dan Parton wrote a new blog post: True cost of dementia revealed

If there is one way to make government, and those that hold the purse strings, sit up and take notice of something, it is to put it in financial terms. Especially if the numbers involved are big ones.
So, a figure of £23 billion – the cost of dementia annually in the UK – is bound [...]

  2 years, 3 months ago · View

Dan Parton wrote a new blog post: Care funding – at what cost?

As the Free Personal Care at Home Bill creeps its way through Parliament, the voices against it get louder – but yet they still seem not to be heard.
Lord Warner, a former health minister, attempted to get the Bill delayed in a motion to the House of Lords, but lost the vote yesterday.
He said that [...]

  2 years, 3 months ago · View

Dan Parton wrote a new blog post: SCRs: to publish or not to publish?

In the fallout from the Edlington case – where 2 brothers subjected 2 other children to a sustained attack – aspects of social services have again come under the public microscope. This time, it is serious case reviews (SCRs).
The Conservatives, and others, have called for the full Edlington case SCR to be published, rather than [...]

  2 years, 3 months ago · View

Dan Parton wrote a new blog post: Paying for care still biggest concern for older people

How to pay for residential care is still the biggest worry for older people, their families and carers, according to a new report.
Older people’s charity Counsel & Care’s Care Concerns 2009 reported that 25% of calls to its advice line are about this.
Nothing new in this – it’s been a worry for years [...]

  2 years, 3 months ago · View

Dan Parton wrote a new blog post: EastEnders bipolar storyline helps tackle stigma

I’ll make this clear at the outset; I’m not a fan of EastEnders. My wife is, and I occasionally take a passing interest in it. Honest.
But there is one storyline that has really piqued my interest in the past year or so; Stacey Slater’s gradual development of bipolar disorder.
For those who aren’t regular viewers, Stacey’s [...]

  2 years, 3 months ago · View

Dan Parton wrote a new blog post: Baby P effect sustained

For about a year now, social workers have been talking about the ‘Baby P effect’ – the rise in applications for children to be taken into care. While many thought it would be a temporary blip, which would die down when the furore over the case did, it is proving to be sustained.
Care demand from [...]

  2 years, 4 months ago · View

Dan Parton wrote a new blog post: Recruitment drive paying off for social services

This will be music to the ears of beleaguered HR officers in children’s social services departments; 40,000 people have registered an interest to join the profession since last September.
Figures from the Children’s Workforce Development Council  demonstrate that the government’s recruitment drive – launched in the wake of the Laming Review last year, along [...]

  2 years, 4 months ago · View

Dan Parton wrote a new blog post: Serious case reviews are improving

Good news for social work; serious case reviews are improving and 40% are now good, with only 1 in 6 inadequate.
Latest figures from regulator Ofsted – as reported in the Daily Telegraph – covering 114 SCRs between April and December 2009, found that 45 were good, while 51 were adequate. Only 18 were judged [...]

  2 years, 4 months ago · View

Dan Parton wrote a new blog post: Improving dementia services will take time

When the National Dementia Strategy was launched amid much fanfare last February, the government said that dementia would become a priority and services would be improved. But nearly a year on, the rhetoric hasn’t been backed up by enough action, according to the National Audit Office.
In its interim report on improving dementia services [...]

  2 years, 4 months ago · View

Dan Parton wrote a new blog post: Unity needed to take social work forward

The national college of social work is still only a recommendation on a piece of paper, but already there are signs of dissent among social work organisations about the way forward for it.
Firstly, BASW has threatened to pull out of the group that will steer the development of the college over fears of government interference in [...]

  2 years, 4 months ago · View

Dan Parton wrote a new blog post: A nation of silver gamers

Think games consoles like the Nintendo Wii are just for kids? Think again. According to a survey by online discount voucher provider MyVoucherCodes.co.uk, 18% of over 60s now regularly play games, with one in three of these identifying the Nintendo DS as their favourite console.
While these figures may surprise some, it highlights a shift in [...]

  2 years, 4 months ago · View

Dan Parton wrote a new blog post: Free elderly care tax rise warning

Ever since Gordon Brown announced plans to give free personal care to the elderly late last year, the policy has faced a sustained barrage of criticism. And it isn’t showing any signs of stopping.
While in theory, free personal care for the elderly in their own home sounds like a great idea, the practicalities of it [...]

  2 years, 4 months ago · View

Dan Parton wrote a new blog post: Yet another potential Alzheimer’s cure announced

Finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease has become something of a Holy Grail within the medical profession, and I get the impression that scientists really are researching every possible angle to find it.
How else would you explain the news today that researchers at the Florida Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centre have discovered that radiation from mobile [...]

  2 years, 4 months ago · View

Dan Parton wrote a new blog post: CQC blasts learning disability services

While this report came out from the Care Quality Commission  last month, it’s worth highlighting again in case anyone missed it; specialist health services for people with learning disabilities still need significant improvement.
The CQC inspected 43 NHS and independent sector services between September 2008 and January 2009 and found provision was “at best [...]

  2 years, 4 months ago · View

Dan Parton wrote a new blog post: Continuing care still a grey area

New Year; same old social care news stories. This one from the Daily Mail  tells the story of Phyllis Knight, a lady so badly affected by Alzheimer’s disease that she spent 4 days living with the dead body of her husband before neighbours discovered what had happened, yet has been turned down for [...]

  2 years, 4 months ago · View

Dan Parton wrote a new blog post: Sense prevails with Vetting and Barring Scheme revisions

In one of the great pieces of buck-laying of recent times, Sir Roger Singleton, chairman of the Independent Safeguarding Authority, which will run the Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) that will check the suitability of people who work with children and vulnerable adults, has laid the blame for the furore around it squarely on the [...]

  2 years, 5 months ago · View