News

Crossroads Care and The Princess Royal Trust for Carers have launched a new campaign called “Give Carers a Break.” The campaign aims at calling for PCTs to use their allocated government funds for carers breaks.

In November 2010 the Government announced that £400m would be made available to Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) to pay for breaks for adult and young carers. The announcement was welcomed by all carers and carers organisations, but there were concerns that the PCTs could use the funding for other purposes as the money is not “ring-fenced.”

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The Royal London Society for the Blind has started a new social group for visually impaired young people (and additional disabilities, age range: 11 – 19 years), living in the borough of Southwark.  There will be a mix of meetings, outings, social events, training sessions and one-to-one support.

The emphasis is on young people making decisions about what they want to do and where they want to go, to promote independence and enable better access to the local community. The focus is on fun local activities and on meeting other young visually impaired people in the borough.  Some of the activities undertaken by the groups have been bowling, a visit to Thorpe Park, running a stall at a social event, water skiing, theatre shows and lots of other fun activities.

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Please find attached a letter inviting comments on proposals to reconfigure sheltered housing in Southwark. Given the level of grant reductions sustained by this authority current levels of funding for many services are under scrutiny and this includes how support in sheltered housing is both funded and provided. The council has embarked on a project to reconfigure sheltered housing in Southwark and the aim of the project can be summarised as follows:

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On 19^th July Southwark’s Cabinet agreed the following recommendations (subject to call-in):

That Cabinet agrees:

1. To reduce the council contribution to voluntary sector open access day services/lunch clubs by ceasing block contracting arrangements and funding eligible individuals through personal budgets;
2. Work intensively to embed the personal budget model for users of these services with eligible care and support needs by end August 2011 as an alternative means of income for organisations;
3. Launch an innovation fund, where organisations can bid for funding to support transformation and the development of hubs and encourage future financial self-sustainability;
4. Implement proposals to re-commission community support services for older people (information, advice, advocacy and befriending) from April 2012 by inviting bids against a revised service specification that supports the objectives of maintaining independence, health and wellbeing and effective personalised services.

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Research from Age UK shows that every day, 800 older people fall on a bus. Many of these passengers fall because of unsafe bus driving. Activists from acrossLondon have been surveying their local buses, documenting how frequently drivers drive off without waiting for passengers to be seated. Sometimes, drivers sometimes accelerate away from the stop without waiting for passengers to find a seat.

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The Princess Royal Trust for Carers was the chosen charity for the  BBC Lifeline’s June appeal which was  presented by the Trusts Vice President, Pam Ferris, and featured an interview with Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal.

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This site is a free service for existing local authority and housing association tenants. It is a database of information given by tenants that want to move.

Nine of ten (91%) Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) still haven’t committed to using government-allocated funding to support carers, according to new research by The Princess Royal Trust for Carers and Crossroads Care.

And while over half (54%) said they will revise their plans to support carers, carers fear they will miss out again if PCTs aren’t held to account.

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The Chief Executive of Southern Cross care homes has written to all local authorities across the country today to let them know that homes run by the company are to be transferred to new operators.

The company has said that it will now draw up detailed plans on how this is to happen and have said that they will keep residents and their families, staff who work at the homes, and also local authorities, fully informed about what is happening. The national process of transferring Southern Cross homes to new owners is expected to be completed by the company by the end of October. In Southwark, Southern Cross operates three care homes.

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CoolTan Arts believes mental well-being is enhanced by the power of creativity.

They are looking for Southwark Based writers and performers to help with one of their projects:

• Spoken Word, Poetry, Rap, Short Stories.
• Writers who have work about Southwark/set in Southwark.
• Writers exploring mental health issues.

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