Things grow slowly every day
Imperceptibly
Until one day
You wake up and realise it’s grown.
It happens to forms in the NHS
And to managers to fill in the forms.
But as beds shrink to pay more staff,
Only patient waiting list grow.
Clutter grows one thing at a time
Imperceptibly until it’s there.
Then you have a devil of a job
To get rid of it !
This is a continuation of my last week’s blog on welfare benefits. ( You can see all the posts on this subject by clicking on “Welfare Benefits “ in the Tag Cloud )
If ever there was a time when you need easy, crystal clear, help and asssistance, it must be when you have lost a loved one. So I am sure I have got this advice from the Government website on benefits wrong. But I read the information on Bereavement Allowance and this is what I understood it to say :-
Oops! Now I have found my mistake it does not say 1917, it is 2017. Apologies to the Department of Works and Pensions.
Perhaps if you hadn’t written 5772 pages of information I would not have been so tired and befuddled.
FOOTNOTE – Please note, I hasten to add that I am no expert and anyone reading this should not take my observations or figures as fact. Hopefully before I finish this series of blogs, I will have raised awareness of some of the issues in the welfare benefits system. If you’re intending to make a claim, you should go to one of the trusted agencies like Age UK or Citizens Advice Bureau.
Doctors are in a dilemma. Anti-Depressant pills …….. or social clubs ? What to prescribe for loneliness? Conflicting advice has emerged just in the last two days.
Listen to researchers from Oxford University and doctors should be recommending more and more anti-depressant pills to the ever increasing number of lonely older people. There are estimated to be around 2 million people who suffer from depression in Britain. A staggering 65 million anti-depressant prescriptions are issued every year. That must keep the doctors busy.
Alternatively, follow the latest advice of NHS England and prescribe more social activity. Coffee mornings, bingo, walking groups, pubs, night clubs ………. anywhere you can meet and talk to people. So maybe not night clubs. Actually, pubs weren’t in the original list because I don’t think NHS England likes alchohol. But for many older people, pubs are increasingly a popular place to meet and that doesn’t imply they are drinking themselves to death.
I wonder if my GP will pay for my season ticket at Leicester Tigers, if I tell him that I’m getting depressed about Tigers’ results lately ? They are not having a very good season this year, so perhaps the team doctor should issue anti-depressants to the 20,000 Tigers fans 😀
For this new more wholistic approach to work, GP’s would have to spend a lot more time getting to know their patients first. This is perhaps a skill that has been lost in today’s five minute consultations. It is doubly difficult if you see a different doctor every time you visit the group practice. Maybe we should go back to family doctors and occasional home visits?
Not so many pills for the ill, just a bit more time and compassion.
This is a continuation of my last week’s blog on welfare benefits. ( You can see all the posts on this subject by clicking on “Welfare Benefits “ in the Tag Cloud )
There seem to be quite a few weather related benefits, but all have a lot of weather conditions attached to them. So here is what I have found out so far:-
I then thought I would find out how much has been paid out in total. I found a helpful looking UK Statistics Authority website and Assessment 319, which in a 9 page letter basically said we don’t keep the data weekly on how much it costs, nor is it kept by local areas and anyway it would be too expensive to collect …… and we are very busy …. and we don’t have the resources. So go away. So it wasn’t so helpful after all.
The good news is that if you are eligible, which means you have to qualify for means tested benefits, (Pension Credit, Income Support, Universal Credit), they will send it to you automatically. Unless you are in hospital at the time. In other words trust me and we will let you know.
No wonder older people talk about the weather all the time!
FOOTNOTE – Please note, I hasten to add that I am no expert and anyone reading this should not take my observations or figures as fact. Hopefully before I finish this series of blogs, I will have raised awareness of some of the issues in the welfare benefits system. If you’re intending to make a claim, you should go to one of the trusted agencies like Age UK or Citizens Advice Bureau.
This is a continuation of my last week’s blog on welfare benefits. ( You can see all the posts on this subject by clicking on “Welfare Benefits “ in the Tag Cloud )
I have been surfing around for days now in the choppy sea of welfare benefits information. At this point I am none the wiser, indeed if anything I am more befuddled about where to start. That is hardly surprising if you remember those 5772 pages on the Government website. Needles and haystacks come to mind!
My frustration is compounded by my limited computer skills and the torrent of data that is floating around in the Benefits sea. If I could structure and simplify it all, there would be a pile of unclaimed money that could be made available to many hard-pressed older people.
But perhaps that’s the reason for all the information and confusion. Successive Governments of both parties are always in two minds about benefits. When they want something they willingly give money back to us to secure our votes. Then having promised it, they are not totally committed to spending the money. It is easy to give the benefits with one hand, thereafter in times of austerity, it is not so easy to take it back with the other.
I can certainly see why many older people are unaware of benefits that are available to them, but also why even if they know about them they don’t claim them.
All the more reason to keep paddling 😋
FOOTNOTE – Please note, I hasten to add that I am no expert and anyone reading this should not take my observations or figures as fact. Hopefully before I finish this series of blogs, I will have raised awareness of some of the issues in the welfare benefits system. If you’re intending to make a claim, you should go to one of the trusted agencies like Age UK or Citizens Advice Bureau.
I have been surfing around looking for welfare benefits solutions for what seems like an age. So this weekend I am going to have a break and write about some thing different.
Ever since the Last Laugh Looney Party has been at the Cabinet table it has been having more and more influence on Government policy. There has not been a better example than last weeks announcement by the new Transport Minister —- Mr Jo Johnson. He is the younger brother of Boris, who is also well known for progressive Looney ideas.
Jo Jo has only been in office for six weeks and already he has gone a long way to solving a major crisis. One most of us didn’t know we had! The railways, or more precisely the devastating environmental scourge of carbon particle pollution from diesel trains. I must admit it has given me many sleepless nights, thinking about carbon particle pollution. What is even more worrying is that we live close to a railway and those particles might be blowing in any time the north wind blows. I may have to ware a mask until Jo Jo has sorted the trains out. I will also contact my ever-helpful no-win no-fee lawyer.
Jo Jo has decreed that such filthly trains will be banned almost overnight — or at least by 2040. Well, —-he hopes by then — or maybe later. Trains are always late anyway!
The new policy was kicked off with a speech at the British Museum full of all the latest political buzz words, straight out of the LLLP Political Speech Handbook :-
Jo Jo, like his brother, has obviously learned a lot from the Last Laugh Looney Party. It is a good idea to have dates which are so far away that no-one will remember what you said when the time comes around to deliver a result. Litter your speeches with technical jargon that nobody will understand, which will make you look very clever. Finally get yourself all over the news papers which will raise your profile, when nobody knows who you are, or what on earth you are talking about.
Who knows Jo Jo could be the first Last Laugh Looney Prime Minister in …… 2040 😀
The path to benefits entitlement,
is not paved with enlightenment.
Benefits Streets aren’t paved with gold.
They are more like illusory rainbows.
Reform is beset by political indecision.
Met swiftly with opposition derision.
The virtue of benefit is washed away,
by extremes on both sides of debate.
This is a continuation of my last week’s blog on welfare benefits. ( You can see all the posts on this subject by clicking on “Welfare Benefits “ in the Tag Cloud )
Perhaps I should start with what I know already. There are far more reliable websites out there, if you can find them. One of my first problems was that the websites have different dates and consequently different databases. Because of that you can frequently find several figures for the same issue. Needless to say this is hopelessly confusing. Also, several benefits have changed their name over the years and it is easy to mistakenly think that they are separate benefits when they may not be. There are some trustworthy advice agencies that can guide you on this but you have to find who you can trust first. Because sadly I have found several companies that embed their advertising amongst charitable organisations. But in fact many of them are high interest loan sharks, so you have to be very careful. Additionally, there is a vast amount of Government information, but once again you have to find the particular data that is current and relevant to you and that is not always easy. That’s what this blog thread will be all about.
I have worked with charitable organisations for 30 years providing housing and support for older people. During that time I have employed some very committed and successful benefits teams. What little I now know I have learned from them. They have helped a great many older people to secure substantial unclaimed benefits, which in total amounts to many millions of pounds.
So here is a jumble of benefits information in my head. Let’s start with what benefits I have heard of :-
I could go on to mention Council Tax Benefit …….. and then discuss …….. cold weather …….. and fuel …….. and care …….. and health …….. and ……. and ……. But with each step my knowledge would get less and less and more befuddled. Also I would probably need 5772 pages.
So I will look them up first before I comment on them individually. So far I have spent quite a few days surfing in the benefits sea. I have yet to find a compass or a life raft.
Is it any wonder that so many older people fail to receive their full entitlement to welfare benefits ?
FOOTNOTE – Please note, I hasten to add that I am no expert and anyone reading this should not take my observations or figures as fact. Hopefully before I finish this series of blogs, I will have raised awareness of some of the issues in the welfare benefits system. If you’re intending to make a claim, you should go to one of the trusted agencies like Age UK or Citizens Advice Bureau.
Economists are funny people with some very strange ideas. They are always forecasting things which rarely come true. Today I read for the first time about the theory of “peak stuff”. It is not a concept I have come across, although it sounds like a collision of product life cycles.
Apparently some economist worked out that in the UK in the year 2000 the average person in Britain purchased 15 tons of material. By 2013 that number had fallen to a mere 10 tons. Goodness knows how they calculated that number or what it consisted of :- cars, furniture, a years’ supply of food and drink, clothes. Could that all add up to fifteen tons, or even ten tons? It’s very hard to believe but, I suppose a lot of it would be excess packaging.
Well when you have got that much stuff you may conclude you have enough. That’s where the idea of “peak stuff” comes from. Older people are likely to reach this state sooner than everyone else. That is when I started to get concerned about my M&S shares. I was reading in the Times business pages about Marks and Spencer’s closing a number of its stores and they mentioned “peak stuff” leading to reduced consumer demand.
I suppose when you think about it, I certainly have enough pants and vests to last a lifetime. Not to mention white shirts, and socks and hankies and sweaters and ties and more ties. Yep I have definitely reached “peak stuff”.
The economists were right after all. It is me that is responsible for the country’s economic downturn.
I have decided to start a thread about welfare benefits for older people. It may we’ll go on over several months as it is a large issue and to many people, including me, an unfathomable subject. Nonetheless it potentially offers vital financial support to many people.
What interests me is how anybody expects older people to find their way around such a complicated system. Or maybe, if they are the Government who is dishing out, they don’t? The take-up of benefits is renowned for being low, especially by the poorest pensioners, who the benefits are supposed to be helping. Various commentators estimate the under-claiming of pensioners benefits to be between £3 billion and £5.5 billion annually. A pot of gold for the old at the end of a reluctant rainbow!
So I kicked off my research with my IPad, because all Government information is on-line these days. A visit to the Government’s website on benefits has 5,772 pages ! That should be a quick read.
Perhaps it is not surprising, because the Government spends £264 billion on benefits every year, which is 34% of all Government spending. Not all of it is spent on pensioners, but a lot of it is.
A graphic I found on the Office of National Statistics website gave a breakdown of the budget figures :-
SO HOW DO YOU GET IT ? That will be my challenge in the weeks / months ahead. I will report on my progress each week.
GrumbleSmiles 