I have been shielding for months now due to a medical condition listed as extremely vulnerable to COVID-19 but keeping in touch with work. Over the last few months I've been updated with changing company policy and watching the Government updates closely.
'Confined to bed'. 'Restricted to bed'. Bedbound, bedridden. Words and terms that sound so pitiable. So pathetic. So awful. A life that's hardly worth living. The end of ever having a 'normal' life again. Better off dead. But that's not the case. It doesn't have to be like that. Being stuck in bed most of the time doesn't have to mean it's all over and life is finished. There is so much that can still be done, so much left to do, so much life yet to live. I know there are many people who are in horrible pain or, at least, in considerable discomfort for much of the time and I can't speak for them as I haven't experienced it and don't fall into that category, but there are also lots of people, like me, who are just unable to get up much because of their impairment. This can be due the medical equipment they need to stay alive, due to the lack of help and support they have or at least, just because its such hard work to do it and its often not worth the effort. I'm one of that category.
In his Spring Statement today (Wednesday 13th March 2019) the Chancellor did not make any commitments to the funding of social care.
Hft is calling on Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond to match words with actions and provide an emergency cash injection for the social care sector in his Spring Statement, to help providers address the ongoing recruitment crisis in the sector. Last month, the charity published its annual Sector Pulse Check, which provides a yearly snapshot of the financial health of the social care sector. The report warned that 80% of providers cited the "enforced low pay model" - where local authorities commission fees at the lowest wage level possible - as the biggest challenge for recruiting new staff. As a result, 63% of providers reported increases in agency fee spend, and that it was now a major financial pressure (a fifty percentage-point increase from the 2017/18 survey).
Disabled pensioners will no longer face "unnecessary" repeat assessments to continue receiving benefits, the work and pensions secretary has announced. From spring, 270,000 people in Britain will not have personal independence payments (PIPs) regularly reviewed.
It is one of the biggest domestic policy issues of our times - where should the balance be struck between the individual and the state's responsibility for paying for care in old age? A much-anticipated government policy paper for England has still not surfaced. Experts are calling it a "national scandal" with services in parts of the country near collapse and millions of vulnerable people deprived of the care and support they need.
