The CarerThursday August 1 2013

Challengesof changeBy Bield bosses: page ten

Who will care?‘Future’ Forum: page eight

Juggling JadeSugababe’s family challenge

Carer

Jade Ewen cover story: page four

Thursday August 1 2013 | the times

The Carer2

For their attention

Inside Cover storyThe caring, sharing Sugababe Pages 4/5

The Times Forum Future shocks? Care experts discussPages 8/9

Raising awarenessCo-operative’s day for young carersPage 12

The Times Business Insight reaches more senior business people in the North of England than any other quality newspaper. Indeed, with 184,000 readers* and reaching almost 20 per cent of the all c-suite executives**, there is no better place to be seen. *Source NRS July 2011 - June 2012 **Source BBS 2011

To advertise in the next North of England edition of Business Insight:Freephone 0800 027 0403or contact: stuart@timesnorth.co.uk

Welcome

Welcome to the second issue of The Carer from The Times, the only supplement in a national newspaper dedicated to supporting home carers. The Carer has now successfully embedded itself in the community which it serves, and is playing a leading role in bringing all the emotionally draining issues that confront carers to the attention of the powers that be.

For while the Government’s Care Bill makes its way inexorably through parliament, it is at best only a patch-and-mend solution. Even Paul Burstow MP, who was care services minister when the Bill was originally drafted, admitted to having concerns at the latest Forum from The Times.

Cost, oddly enough, is not the overriding issue. Even in this time of cutbacks, it is not simply a question of more money for carers, but a better use of the funding available to support them. If this doesn’t happen, in the words of Dr Peter Carter, chief executive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing – and also a Forum delegate – then we “face disaster”.

Making carers formally part of the healthcare support system will free up the NHS to do what it is best at – dealing with people who are really sick and not simply suffering the conditions of ageing. Currently, more than half of NHS patients are aged over 65, with a survey showing that 40 per cent of these need not be there. Beds are blocked by dementia patients, while A&E departments are stretched to the limit by elderly people with nowhere else to go for help.

The bottom line is not that the Coalition cannot afford to offer more support to carers, it cannot afford not to.

The Times is the only national newspaper to join the support group for carers, and here we look at whatCarers Trust is doing toease the lives of sevenmillion UK carers – arole that awaits threeout of every five of us By Mike Cowley

There are always enough hours in the day for Laura King. She not only runs the most successful luxury food com-pany in the UK with her chef

husband John, is mum to two teenage children and dedicates a substantial amount of effort to fundraising for charities – but she also finds time to care for her 91-year-old former music teacher. “You just do it”, she says.

Mrs King had always kept in touch with Kathleen Lamb, her teacher at Ab-botsford Girls School. The bond started when the pupil sang in the choir run by her teacher, and continued after she left school and joined the Kathleen Lamb Choir, which had been set up to raise money for charity.

What was subsequently maintained as an occasional contact, helped by Mrs King and her family living only a cou-ple of miles away in Staines from her former teacher, took on a whole new meaning when Mrs Lamb’s husband died 10 years ago. Laura King not only held the funeral at her own home, but started to visit Mrs Lamb every week – and, slowly but surely, with the el-derly lady’s relatives living quite some distance away, drifted willingly into the role of her carer.

Laura King is unperturbed by this, as by most things in her life. “We all end up as carers anyway,” she says. When it became clear that Mrs Lamb could no longer look after herself, even with help, it was Mrs King who helped her to select the best nursing home to meet her needs. This proved to be in Whiteley, a model village in Surrey, founded in 1919 with £1 million left by the owner of a successful Bayswater store.

The fact that William Whiteley’s will specified the money should be used for elderly people resulted in the creation of, among other facilities, a renowned hos-pital and a nursing home, the latter being where Kathleen Lamb lives today.

Laura King visits her two or three times a week – and, on the days she is not there, organises other visitors.

“She is eccentric, as mad as a March Hare really, but I’m very fond of her,” Mrs King says. When she is not acting as a carer, she spends a lot of her time ensur-ing the lives of thousands of other carers are made easier through her fundraising activities for Carers Trust and related charities.

Laura King has been a key figure in organising dinners on behalf of Carers Trust at the Ritz and the Langham ho-tels, one of which was attended by HRH The Princess Royal and raised in excess of £80,000. This year sees Mrs King acting as chairwoman of the organising

committee for the 2013 Gala Dinner at Claridge’s, to be held in November.

While Mrs King has an established reputation for successfully squeezing the wallets and purses of the well-heeled glitterati at such events, she is arguably better known for mountain climbing to raise money for charity.

Although insisting she is not a sporty person, she led a party of nine on a trek to Everest base camp, raising £68,000 for St David’s Care in the Community. Despite her dodgy knees requiring tab-lets, which then reacted adversely with pills for altitude sickness to make her “very, very ill”, she managed to host the world’s most expensive breakfast – the finest caviar and champagne as supplied by Kings Fine Foods to such as Harrods and Fortnum & Mason – when they reached their objective.

Undeterred by that ordeal, she is plan-ning another venture in aid of Carers Trust – this time up Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak and arguably tougher as it is a few hundred metres higher than Everest base camp and involves “a little climbing” at the end.

A handful of people have already signed up, and Mrs King is looking to boost the numbers to 20 in order to reach her dream fundraising target of at least £50,000. Asked how active people need to be in order to participate, she in-sists that as long as one can walk some distance, has an average fitness level and does some training, there will be no problems.

Self-effacingly, she points to herself as an example: she goes to the gym three times a week for spin classes, but describes herself as “not exactly slim”. “When you’ve got a food business,” she says, “you obviously eat nice things.” Chocolate is her downfall – be it what has been described as the world’s finest Amedei, which Kings sell, or the more humble Cadbury’s creme eggs. How many of these does she eat? “Enough,” she says.

The plan is that once everyone has signed up for the trek (see separate panel), the experts will be brought in – 360 Expeditions, who got the Red Nose party up and down the mountain with-out incident – and they will establish a regime for six months of training.

Asked whether her ordeal on Everest has made her think twice about Kili-manjaro, Laura King says: “I never even thought about it until you asked. You just get on with it, like life.” But has she ever thought about ending up being cared for herself? What about the pro-spect of her son Harry, aged 14 and an aspiring golfer, or daughter Holly, 19 and a candidate to join the family business, looking after her just as she now cares for her old music teacher?

Her reply is short and to the point. “I bloody hope not – I’ll be a nightmare for them.”

If you fancy pulling on your walking boots and heading out along the spectacular 5,895-metre Lemosho Route up Mount Kili-manjaro, then Laura King and the

team from Carers Trust are looking for you.

The cost per person is £2,500, which includes a return flight from the UK, accommodation and food, and in

addition you will be expected to raise a minimum of £1,500 in sponsorship for the two-week trip of a lifetime.

“We have set the sponsorship bar quite low as we know things are tough out there at the moment,” Mrs King says. “But we are just hoping that we will attract enough individuals who can help us reach our dream target of around £50,000.”

For full details of the adventure, log on to www.carers.org/climb- kili-carers

�� To register to take part in the event, please contact either Alison Houghton, ahoughton@carers.org, 07896 252565, or Peter S Guillaume, pstguillaume@carers.org, 0208 498 7926.

Devoted tocaring forthe carers

The Kilimanjaro Trek March 5–19, 2014

Laura King: a dedicated dynamo

The Carerthe times | Thursday August 1 2013 3

Retired factory owner Patrick Greaney thought his marriage had come to an end when Linda, his wife of more than 50 years, started to become moody

and aggressive with him around seven years ago. Such was the change in their relationship that the 81-year-old even contemplated moving out of the family home and starting a new life on his own despite his advanced age.

Mr Greaney eventually began to real-ise, through newspaper articles at first, that Linda was one of millions of peo-ple suffering from dementia – although, like many husbands and wives facing the same problem, he refused for a long time to accept the diagnosis because she had lucid moments.

“I hadn’t come across it before and sim-ply didn’t know what to do,” he recalls. “Now, if she says a jumbo jet has landed in the garden, I just agree with her.” Mr Greaney’s struggle to cope with his wife’s dementia has, he admits, even eclipsed the loss of a son with leukaemia at the age of four. Linda’s illness also presented him with an unusual problem

The former businessman – his factory which makes cutting tools is now run by his son – had a second office at home where his wife would look after all the personal correspondence via their home computer. “So I had a secretary in work

and at home,” he says. “She would do the computer and the cooking and I would look after all the legal things.

“She was a very clever girl, having learned about computing on a little Amstrad. When internet started, she could see where it was going. So she came back and told me and my son and we just laughed at her – so she was ahead of her time, really.”

One of the outward symptoms of Lin-da’s illness demonstrated itself in that she refused to let her husband enter the office and became violent – turning over the fil-ing cabinet – when he attempted to even approach their home computer. This left him feeling trapped and effectively cut off from the outside world.

The obvious answer was to either take the home computer out of the office when she wasn’t looking, or to get one for himself. But while the solution was there, it didn’t automatically solve all Mr Greaney’s problems, as he was computer illiterate.

“I didn’t know how to do emails or any-thing,” he says, “so when she crashed out that became a real problem.” The answer came via a breakthrough scheme called Getting Carers Connected, run by Cross-roads Care Hertfordshire North (see pan-el below). This was designed and devel-oped to open up the potential for elderly and often virtually housebound carers to use home computers as a means of keep-ing in touch with the outside world.

Getting Carers Connected is simple in its concept – to teach basic computer skills either in workshops or one-to-one at home when carers are unable to get out. The objective is to harness the tech-nology so that people can use the inter-net with confidence, accessing services, shopping online, keeping in touch using

email or through social networking sites – alleviating social isolation and stress and giving people back a degree of inde-pendence.

In Patrick Greaney’s case, Getting Car-ers Connected came to his home. He can now send emails and has organised a par-ty for his wife using his new-found skills. His next project is to “sell a lot of junk” on eBay. “I don’t want to be a computer expert,” he says, “but what I have learned has made a real difference to my life.”

And having been recently diagnosed with prostate cancer, a situation he ini-tially ignored because of the demands of looking after his wife, Mr Greaney is grateful for any help he can get.

Danny Loo/archant

By Mike Cowley

George Plumptre (pronounced as though it has an extra “e” on the end) has an appropriate-sounding name, not only for his current role but also for his lifetime passion –

gardens and gardening.The former gardening correspondent for

The Times has now found himself dug into yet another perfect position: as chief executive of the National Gardens Scheme (NGS), a truly unique British institution and the principal fi-nancial supporter of Carers Trust.

The NGS, as anyone interested in garden-ing should be well aware, is the ideal charity for those who are curious about other people’s gardens. It was founded in 1927 in memory of Queen Alexandra (1844–1925), a great patron of nursing charities, when one of the trustees came up with the bright idea – duly minuted – to ask people to open their gardens to visitors for a small fee.

The first year saw 600 gardens opened, each charging a shilling a head and raising a total of £8,000. So popular did this prove that

it became an annual fundraising event. At the start, the great gardens of England were the ones on display, carefully groomed at grand country mansions. Today, while the stately homes are still part of the scheme, they have been joined by every conceivable type of gar-den – from back gardens in back streets, to groups of allotments, to a garden surrounding a Liverpool tower block.

This year, 3,800 gardens of all shapes and sizes have thrown open everything from an-cient and ornate gates to the humble wooden entry in the hedge or fence. A group of ter-raced houses in Worthing – nine back gar-dens in a row – raised £6,000. Admission prices average just under £4 per adult – with most gardens allowing children in free – and an average of £2.50 is charged for a cup of tea and a slice of home-made cake.

“The teas are a great NGS tradition,” Mr Plumptre says. “We are famous for our cakes and buns and for the overall price – which, compared to other things you could be doing, makes for a very reasonable day out.”

Carers Trust is now a major beneficiary of these days out, having picked up from Cross-

roads – for which the NGS was a founding supporter in 1996 – and benefiting to the tune of £2.5 million in all to date.

Originally established to support nursing charities, the NGS moved to embrace carers in the mid-1990s, “a very foresighted deci-sion” in the light of the ever-growing need, according to George Plumptre. The NGS has given Carers Trust an annual donation ever since.

The NGS is also highly personally moti-vated in its support for carers. “The biggest challenge is getting across to people what carers are, how many of them there are, and what a terrifyingly anonymous job they do,” Mr Plumptre says. “Nurses everyone knows about – they are brave and wonderful and wear uniforms. Carers could be anybody – that’s the challenge – and we love supporting them.”

George Plumptre is also a great advocate of the remedial value of gardens. “Being in a garden or taking someone to a garden is fan-tastic therapy,” he says. “Carers in particular have a very stressful life looking after mum, a child or a friend. So if they can get some time

off to go and sit in a lovely garden – even if they are not remotely keen on gardening – we know from first-hand evidence that they find this beneficially recuperative in a way few other things can match.

“We are working very closely with our beneficiary charities on this because of the bank of expertise we’ve got – and it is a very exciting development.”

Strangely, the NGS remains a uniquely British institution. While gardens in countries such as the Netherlands and Australia are similarly opened to raise money, there are no nationally organised institutions outside the UK.

Asked if he had any personal experience of caring, Mr Plumptre says: “I have a younger brother who had a very serious accident as a teenager, and as a result has had a very cheq-uered health career. Now he is in his 50s, we as a family have done a lot of caring for him. In 2009 I donated a kidney to him – it was his third kidney transplant.

“There are very few of us, I reckon, who don’t have a reasonably close connection with caring – either through family or friends.”

How surfing can help those who help others

It all clicked for carer Patrick Greaney, pictured with Isabel Bauckham the project coordinator, when he made contact with Getting Carers Connected

Plants and carers offer a fruitful relationship for gardener George

I don’t want to be a computer expert, but what I’ve learnedhas made a big difference to my life

Disconnect for Getting Carers Connected?With cutbacks reducing project funding, the future of the highly successful Getting Carers Connected project is in doubt at the time of going to press. Having run for a year

– and being seen as a potential model to be extended UK-wide – the allo-cated funds have dried up and there seems little likelihood that further money will be made available.

Thursday August 1 2013 | the times

The Carer4

Cover story: Jade Ewen

She’s a top singer, songwriter, actor, dancer, member of the Sugababes – and a young carerBy Mike Cowley

To all outward appearances, glamorous Sugababe Jade Ewen would seem to have lived an untroubled life. Plucked from stage school at the age of 14 to

go to Australia to act in a BBC children’s television series, chosen to represent the UK in the 2009 Eurovision song contest accompanied by Andrew Lloyd Webber, then catapulted into the Sugababes line-up later that same year – these would all be significant milestones in any celebrity career.

The unabridged story of Jade Ewen is, however, far removed from her perceived public persona, as the setbacks and trau-mas endured by the singer ensure that she has no illusions about her current star status. She managed to pursue her dreams while being forced into a role that is played out daily around the country by

many thousands of unsung heroes – that of a young carer looking after a disabled or dysfunctional parent.

Although her father Trevor had been blind from birth (although, oddly, this was not diagnosed until he was aged four) and partially deaf, and her mother Carol had suffered from gradual loss of peripheral vision, Jade and her two younger siblings scarcely noticed these impediments in their early years, cosseted as they were in the most loving of family units.

Nor did they see themselves as being different, even though Trevor was of Scot-tish-Sicilian extraction while Carol was Jamaican. The issue of race never featured for them in the ethnic melting pot that was the working-class neighbourhood of Plaistow in the East End of London, where they grew up.

The overriding reason why the Ew-ens enjoyed a happy childhood was due to their mother, the rock on which the family was built. She provided a stable, cheerful environment which never al-lowed the children to feel like outsiders in mainstream society. Carol had met Trevor when he was making braille machines and she was his supervisor. Understandably, they went through difficult times together, but there was no way that Carol would al-low her three children to enjoy anything but a normal childhood.

Even when Trevor took the girls each day to their primary school shepherded by Labrador guide dog Able – the chil-dren having to run to catch up as the four- legged front-runner set a hectic pace – there was little or no recognition that they were unlike anyone else. The first time Jade realised her father was blind was when, as a small child, they were on the bus together and she saw another man with his guide dog. She suddenly realised that the other man couldn’t see and it clicked that this was also the case with her father.

“I’d never thought of my dad like that before,” she recalls. “True, the kids at school had asked me what dad saw when he had a dream – and I even asked my sister about that myself – but that mo-ment on the bus really hit home. From then on, I began to understand that if my dad hadn’t got my mum and our family, it would be really difficult for him.” It was a thought destined to become reality.

There was a lot of love in the house-hold, but little or no money. As the eld-est, Jade was more aware of the shortage of funds than were her younger siblings – sister Shereen, now a successful beauti-cian, and Kiel, an up-and-coming teen-age dance star. This was brought home forcibly when, at the age of 12, she set her heart on going to the Sylvia Young Theatre School. The fees of £3,000 per term were simply far beyond the already overstretched family budget.

However, for someone brought up on a diet of the television show Fame, and who lived in a home filled with music and song – her father loved Elvis Pres-ley and Bob Marley, her mother Motown and soul – saying no was not an option. So Jade auditioned and eventually won a scholarship. Her goal was to become a singer – Mariah Carey and Beyoncé were her role models – but the stage school

curriculum demanded that she become an all-rounder, so dancing and acting be-came integral parts of her repertoire of talents.

And it was acting which was to prove the catalyst for early success. While in only her first year at the Sylvia Young school, Jade auditioned for and won the part of Nala in The Lion King in the West End, and also appeared in both The Bill and Casualty. Then, aged just 14, came her first big break – a part in the BBC children’s TV series Out There – and it literally was out there, as the role meant leaving her family behind and living in Australia for four months.

On her return, she was shocked to see how ill her mother had become, as a con-dition known as myasthenia gravis was affecting her auto-immune system, caus-ing her to have difficulty in breathing and to feel constantly tired. At the same time, Carol Ewen had a thyroid problem which made her eyes bulge, her eyelids close and caused her to lose a significant amount of weight.

Her role as a wife and mother was also seriously diminished when she began to lose feeling in her hands, preventing her from picking up things and ruling out cleaning or cooking. But her eldest daughter was almost totally unaware of what was happening until she got back from Australia. “I heard something about a week before I came back, but I didn’t realise what was going on until I got home,” she says. “I had to pretend it was fine and she didn’t look that bad – but that was difficult for me.”

While Jade – and the doctors – realised there was something seriously wrong, the cause of the conditions remained a mys-tery, forcing her mother to be in and out of hospital for years in the struggle to contain and then reverse the frightening illness.

Sparkling starwho shone inher family’sdarkest days

Sugababe Jade Ewen has a message of advice for young carers throughout the UK: ‘You must have something for yourself, a dream to follow’

Sharing experiences: Sugababe Jade Ewen – herself a young adult carer – finds time to chat with fellow young carers at The Co-operative’s Manchester head office

I began to understandthat if dad hadn’t got my mum and our familyit would bereally difficultfor him...

The Carerthe times | Thursday August 1 2013 5

With Jade’s father becomingly increas-ingly depressed and withdrawn due to what was happening, the future Sugababe realised that, as the eldest child, it was down to her to keep the family func-tioning. Finances had gone into a steep decline, however. First Carol had to give up her job at Comic Relief because of her illness, then Trevor began to lose his hear-ing – which, in turn, affected his balance and saw him forced to give up his work of making windows, as it was no longer safe for him to operate machinery.

From two wages coming in, the Ew-ens were down to none and struggling to survive on benefits. Jade not only found herself having to care for her family, but – to make already challenging matters even worse – having to do so on a substantially decreased budget.

Feeding the family, though, was the number one hurdle to overcome. And Jade Ewen had some formidable shoes to step into here. Her mother used to pre-pare not one but a variety of main dishes every meal time to cater for the family members’ different tastes – and, like most 14-year-olds, Jade never even thought to question how the meals she enjoyed ac-tually made it to the table. “I could make bits and bobs,” she recalls, “but not a real meal.”

In the very early days, with mum not around, the Ewens found themselves liv-ing mainly on cereal, toast and scrambled eggs. Necessity forces change, however. Jade had to hone her culinary skills and recalls with satisfaction how she mastered spaghetti bolognese for the first time. “That was easy. It was mince and when it went brown, you knew it was cooked. Then you chucked a bit of sauce in.”

Cooking a chicken proved to be more of an issue. “It was, oooh, raw! I didn’t know what to do with it,” she says. “I didn’t know when it was done. It was horrible.”

Then there was shopping: “I often used to go to our local shopping centre

in Stratford with my mum, but never paid any attention – just let her chuck things in the trolley – that’s what I knew about shopping.” As for another of the domestic duties: “Cleaning was also totally new to me. The only thing I had done before was tidy my room and, as a teenager, getting annoyed about that. Even when it came to washing up, I thought that’s not my place. Suddenly it was.”

Then there was making ends meet on benefits. “We had gas meters and electric meters and stuff,” Jade says. “Having to sort through the post for bills that needed to be paid.” Slowly but surely, however, like other children across the country who are forced to become adults before their time, she found herself slipping into the unheralded role of a young carer.

It was a role Jade had to play for several years until the doctors finally came up with medication to reverse her mother’s condition and she was gradually able to resume her multitude of roles as mother and wife, cook, cleaner, shopper and all the other maternal functions that most families take for granted.

Jade has no regrets about becoming a carer or having to forget about being a normal teenager – she was almost 18 when she had her first boyfriend (“noth-ing very serious”). When it came to her friends going to under-18 school raves, she knew that it simply wasn’t on for her, so she put them out of her mind.

Family is all-important to her, and she is well aware of the sacrifices made in the early days. “My mum had a horrible time growing up with her disabilities,” Jade says, “so she always wanted to make sure we felt loved, even if she didn’t have the money. They were struggling, but we didn’t know about it.

“I loved dancing and singing, so I went to every dance lesson – and did dance competitions – and had my costumes made. I didn’t know at the time that they were living off benefits and struggling to afford to eat, but they still managed to find a way to make it happen. A loving family environment makes up for everything.”

Jade did have her darker moments, however. “At times, I felt overwhelmed by it,” she says. “My school was in central London, so I had to go by tube after I had got my little brother to school. I was trying to revise and had to do cooking as well. My dad was in a dark place and I couldn’t call on my mum for help.

“A particular girl in class found out about my mum being in hospital and she just gave me the worst time, saying ‘I hope your mum dies’. I was thinking, I don’t want this any more. It’s not fair. But you carry on and eventually I met up with the same girl and she said she was sorry and she’d been having a hard time back then.”

Now a Sugababe and a household name, Jade Ewen still has one ambition to fulfil – apart from becoming a successful solo singer-songwriter, that is. She hopes to make enough money to buy her mum and dad a detached house and so make sure they have an easier life in their twi-light years.

Having come through the worst of times while still finding time to carve out a successful career, Jade Ewen has become an ambassador for Carers Trust, which has a support network for young carers. In January, on her birthday, she even attended a major fundraising event for the charity run by The Co-operative Group in Manchester.

And she has a message for young car-ers throughout the UK. “You must have something for yourself – a dream to fol-low, something to cling on to like I had. Otherwise, you will be overcome by it all and you won’t be able to cope.”

Joining the Sugababes – a sweet opportunity or not?

Time for Abbie to be happy

When Jade Ewen was offered a place in the Sugababes, two people were

very worried: Jade’s number one fan, her mother Carol, and Jade herself. For though it was a major opportunity to move on to the world stage, neither was sure it was the right career move – Carol simply because she was a concerned mum, Jade because her real dream was to become a successful singer-songwriter in her own right.

Her solo career had, however, come to a crossroads. She had done Eurovision, been signed by a new label, there were funding problems, her solo project was not getting the attention it deserved, and two deals hadn’t worked out – so it looked like a change of direction should be on the cards.

But to the Sugababes? As a replacement for Keisha Buchanan? “When the deal with the Sugababes came up, it was ‘I don’t know, I don’t know’,” Jade recalls. “I wrote my own stuff and had a very clear vision of how I saw myself and my project – and was passionate about it. It was like being asked to give up on my dream.

“I’d never met them and only read what everybody reads about

them in the papers. They had a stigma of being bitches and I thought, my god, these girls are going to eat me for breakfast. They were older than me, been around for years. I felt I wouldn’t have a voice.”

Carol Ewen was also nervous about the move. What concerned her most was that she didn’t know how to advise her daughter one way or the other. In the end, it became a straightforward business decision: her manager said she could always go back to a solo career – or even pursue one whilst in the group – and she would kick herself in the future if she didn’t take the opportunity.

As it was, the Sugababes turned out to be a wise move, as the record label to which Jade was then signed no longer exists. However, she wouldn’t make a final commitment until she had met the other two members of the group. That in itself pre-sented another problem, as the Sugababes were in Los Angeles preparing to shoot a video. “You can imagine if I’d flown out there and decided I didn’t want to do it,” Jade says. “That would have been hard.”

However, as it turned out, the two other Sugababes – Heidi Range and Amelle Berrabah – could not have been more welcoming. “Heidi was crying

the first time I met her – she had sunglasses on and little tears running down her cheeks,” says Jade. “Mel was very quiet, but now I know them Mel is very loud, has a big personality and you can hear her cackling in every room.

“Once I joined, it really hap-pened so quickly and we were on front covers of papers and my mum was saying ‘What’s going on?’”

When it became clear that, as a Sugababe, Jade could go off and do her own thing – fashion, TV presenting, etc – she realised it was the best of all worlds. But she never planned to be in an all-girl group and she still has qualms about going onstage performing songs she had listened to while she was growing up. “But I guess the others feel the same,” she says.

She admits, though, that she is now happy – and so too is mother Carol. “I guess I must have got my singing from my mum who is always singing until I walk into the room,” Jade says. “She says she can’t sing in front of me because I am a professional.”

Carol also enjoys the celebrity status of her daughter – or at least she did at first. “She said she liked people saying ‘Oh you are Jade’s mum, we saw her on TV’ – but now she hides.”

At 13 years of age, Abbie Scrimgeour has yet to experience a child-hood. Like thousands of other youngsters in

Scotland, she has missed out on the normal process of growing up because she is a young carer.

With her two brothers – Jim aged 11 and Lee, eight – both being autistic, and Lee also suffering from the complications of brain damage, Abbie spends any spare time she has helping her mum Mandy and dad Colin. This can involve getting up in the middle of the night when her parents are too exhausted from the strain of having to cope.

On August 2, though, things will get better – for three days, at least. Abbie Scrimgeour will be joining 800 young carers for a more than well-deserved break at the Scottish Young Carers Festival, where not only will she enjoy respite from caring duties, but also – something quite unusual for her – she will have some fun.

Organised by Carers Trust and funded by the Scottish Govern-ment, the festival is now in its sixth year and will take place at Broomlee Outdoor Education Centre in West Linton, August 2–4. Groups will travel to the festival from as far away as Orkney to join their peers from all over Scotland.

Launched six years ago, the festival is the highlight of the social calendar – and too often the only highlight – for Scotland’s young carers. After all, it is their festival in that they help to design the programme with the help of a steering group made up of people from the Scottish Young Carers Services Alliance, Barnardo’s, Carers Scotland, Action for Children, Children 1st and Shared Care Scotland.

The two full days away from responsibilities at home are seen as vital to enable them to recharge their batteries, meet other children and young people like themselves, and so realise they are not alone.

“It is an opportunity for them to become a child first and a carer second,” says Raymond Jamieson, the Young Carers Project co-ordinator, who works with Abbie Scrimgeour, “when the rest of the time it is the other way round.”

Abbie: a well-deserved break

Thursday August 1 2013 | the times

The Carer6

Emergencies

So distressed – but the Marsdens wererelieved by the localRed Cross care teamBy Mike Cowley

When crisis hit the Mars-den family, it was pre-vented from becoming a disaster by the interven-tion of an organisation

more often associated with helping vic-tims of war and genocide: the British Red Cross.

Catherine Marsden, a 40-year-old farmer, was the carer for not one but three of her close relatives – her frail grandmother Molly aged 90, her father-in-law Roy (84) who has dementia, and her 17-year-old stepson George who has learning difficulties.

What made an already difficult situa-tion worse was that Mrs Marsden’s hus-band Alistair is an electronics engineer whose job keeps him away from home much of the week, with his income being vital to keeping the family afloat.

Catherine Marsden had managed to cope with all this while running an al-

paca and beef livestock breeding farm near Blackburn. When she was taken se-riously ill last January – the day after her mother-in-law died – and was rushed to Preston Royal, the impact on the family unit was potentially devastating. She had begun to suffer from vertigo and retching, with what the doctor initially thought was norovirus but what was eventually diagnosed as a growth on her spine.

“I felt so bad at first that I thought I wasn’t going to come out of hospital,” Mrs Marsden says. It wasn’t until the lo-cal Red Cross health and social care team came to her aid that she began to breathe a sigh of relief.

The reason Mrs Marsden cares for her grandmother is that her own mother died when she was two and her father died in the mid-1990s – so, when Molly’s hus-band died, she moved up from Devon to be nearer to Catherine, her closest sur-viving relative.

Although housebound because of poor mobility – she relies on her grand-daughter for support in having a shower, shopping and cleaning – Molly’s cognitive ability is by no means impaired. “I knew she would be very, very anxious,” Mrs Marsden says. “She’d lost almost every-one in the family apart from me. So I was very worried about that.

A former volunteer herself, Mrs Mars-den rang the local Red Cross even before she was admitted to hospital, knowing they were available in times of crisis. And this certainly was a crisis.

“The lady I first spoke to at the Red Cross was very helpful, very patient,” she

Last year, the Red Cross team which covers Lancashire, Mer-seyside and Greater Manchester – and which moved in to assist Catherine Marsden’s family –

supported 66,000 people in all. Alison Dixey, operations director for the region, is expecting that demand for their home and social care service will increase as budget cuts impact ever more deeply on traditional support services.

Working closely with Carers Trust, the Red Cross offers short-term crisis management, acting as a signpost to the longer-term support that is available locally. “We are there if a number 72 bus comes along and knocks over a carer,” Alison Dixey says. “As an organisation, the Red Cross has always been there in times of crisis, this just happens to be

something we do a little closer to home. People simply don’t announce they are carers, but we work very closely with the hospitals in our areas, who call us in when they realise that a patient is worried about someone at home.”

The Red Cross has recently enhanced its service for carers, providing not only a complete emergency, short-term back-up service, stepping in to take over all the commitments of carers where necessary, but also now having added new and innovative services including safer moving and assisting courses.

An emergency carer card trialled in Lancashire identifies the role of carers and their responsibilities – so that action can be taken immediately if they fall ill or are involved in an accident. Their spe-cialist hand, arm and shoulder massage

treatment – clinically proven to reduce stress – is offered to both the carer and the person being cared for.

Having trained as a nurse dealing with special needs, Alison Dixey has spent most of her working life involved with the social care sector. Now she is facing the realisation that she may have to soon become a carer herself. Last January, her 77-year-old father Roy was taken ill with pneumonia while in Spain, so she immediately flew out to join her mother who is also in her seventies.

While her father is now on the road to recovery, Ms Dixey realises this may simply be a sign of things to come. “I hope not,” she says. “But, inevitably, becoming a carer is likely to happen to all of us.”

Help thatappearsin timesof crisis

Just something we do a little closer to home

The Red Cross’s Alison Dixey: a life in the social care sector

says, “as I was in panic mode. She imme-diately arranged for someone to go and sit with my grandmother to reassure her, check she had taken her medication and keep a general eye on her until I came out. Even when I did, I couldn’t drive or push a wheelchair, so they had some-one handle taking her to appointments which I couldn’t manage.”

Whereas Catherine Marsden was only in hospital initially for a few days, the Red Cross short-term crisis team moved in and supported husband Alistair by providing critical back-up since he had suddenly also become the family carer. And the support has continued, because Mrs Marsden’s health condition means that some days she is unable to speak or move because of the retching.

The Red Cross has also provided “emergency carer cards” – these identify her as a carer, meaning that should any-thing happen, the team will be alerted that back-up help is needed immedi-ately. As for her nan, they are arranging for her to have a hand, arm and shoul-der massage – which has been clinically proven to help alleviate stress and illness and is an integral part of the Red Cross offering.

Apart from the direct support which the Red Cross team has been able to offer the family members, just as important to Mrs Marsden has been the psychological support. “The fact that they ring to ask how I am and if there is anything that can do for me is really lovely,” she says. ”To be quite honest, my husband is so run off his feet looking after everything, he forgets to ask.

“At one time, when I was really quite ill, a Red Cross lady named Marge came and sat with me. It was wonderful that someone could spend a bit of time – I didn’t know what the matter was with me, so it was very, very scary. Just to have someone come in and you have a laugh – it means the world to you.”

While she is waiting for some scan re-sults, so that a plan of action can be put in place, Catherine Marsden can relax in the knowledge that the Red Cross team is already in place. “My husband hasn’t got enough hours in a day, or enough energy to be there for everyone,” she says. “I feel so guilty he is having to deal with everything including the death of his mother. Fortunately, the Red Cross has helped to take some pressure off him, and it is good to know there are such great people about who are willing to support others at a time of crisis.”

Farmer and family carer Catherine Marsden with her dog Ellie in more manageable (but still challenging) times

It was very, very scary, so it was wonderful that someonecould come in and spenda bit of time

When husband Alistair found he had suddenly become the family carer, the Red Cross helped to take the pressure off him

The Carerthe times | Thursday August 1 2013 7

There are a number of things to consider when choosing a care provider to ensure that you will receive the best quality sup-port that is right for your needs.

If you’re providing care for a loved one at home who has a disability, chronic illness or life-limiting condition, you’ll under-stand the importance of getting the right kind of support.

Carers Trust knows it too. This is a char-ity which provides a variety of personal care and respite packages to support un-paid and unsung carers — and those they care for.

Earlier this year, Carers Trust, which was formed from the merger of Crossroads Care and The Princess Royal Trust for Car-ers, celebrated its first anniversary — an

opportunity to think about the people the organisation has helped over the last year.

Barbara has received support from a Carers Trust service in the form of a break from her caring responsibilities. “This ser-vice is a lifeline,” she says.

Yet care provision continues to be a growing issue in this country with more and more of us looking to pay for care pri-vately, or purchase care through a direct payment, a personal budget or a self-direct-ed support initiative.

Buying the right care will affect the qual-ity of your life, so it’s essential to choose the provider who will give the best service for your individual needs — and that means asking a number of vital questions first.

These include:

��Ask yourself how you want to be sup-ported (a professional care support worker or a personal assistant, perhaps?) and if you will employ them through an agency or directly.��First impressions count, so make note of the initial conversations you have with a support provider. Do they do what they promised? Did they get back to you when they said they would — and can you get hold of them when they say you can? Has your support provider spent time get-

ting to know you, to find out about your needs and wishes? They should also develop a per-son centred plan with you and a contract that sets out the support you will receive.

��Will your support provider carry out an annual review of your support, led by you?��Will your support provider confirm a price that will not change after you and they have signed the contract, unless by mutual agreement? ��Will your support provider arrange qual-ity staff who will support you based on your individual needs? ��Will the provider ensure you are safe and supported properly – and are they regis-tered with the appropriate regulator?��Has the provider explained your right to complain – and who you should contact if things go wrong? ��Do you know how to end your agree-ment, what notice period is required and any ‘exit fees’ that you may incur (such as staff salaries or other costs)?

To find your nearest Carers Trust service, go to www.carers.org/carers-services/find-your-local-service or call on 0844 800 4361.

BUYING CARE The questions you should ask

Alan needed support from Carers Trust when his wife, Ann, was diagnosed with a less common form of Alzheimer’s.

Alan and she had been looking forward to a long and happy retirement together. But then Ann became increasingly unco-ordinated and absent-minded and, after a series of tests, was diagnosed with Poste-rior Cortical Atrophy (PCA), a less com-mon form of Alzheimer’s.

The news was devastating. Still only in their 60s, the couple knew they would have to put all their retirement dreams to one side.

With her eyesight gradually fading, it was left to Alan to do every day chores such as paying bills, doing the shopping and taking care of the housework. “Ann was scared and anxious and kept saying to me that she didn’t want to be a burden,” says Alan. “No matter how many times I told her she wasn’t and I loved her just as much as the first time we met, I could see she felt uneasy.”

When Ann’s eyesight and co-ordination got worse and she began having more acci-dents at home, Alan felt he couldn’t leave her alone for a moment — yet supporting Ann emotionally, physically and practi-cally was exhausting. “I needed to help her with all her personal care and it is hard to not let these things affect your relation-ship,” he confesses. “Each day was the same as the next. It was truly soul destroying.”

Alan admits he is not a man who is used to asking for help — but he did finally turn to Carers Trust. The charity offers support and guidance before carers reach a

crisis and had assisted with care for Alan’s elderly mother when she was ill.

“It was such a relief to know that Car-ers Trust could offer Ann the sort of spe-cialist care she needed,” he says. “It was so wonderful that they could send round a dedicated care support worker to look af-ter Ann every morning. Then when Ann had a nasty fall last year, they increased the visits to twice a day. I simply cannot imag-ine how I would have coped on my own.”

If you, like Alan, need help con-tact Carers Trust. To find your nearest Carers Trust service, go to www.carers.org/carers-servic-es/find-your-local-service or call on 0844 800 4361

Alan contacted Carers Trust to help him care for his wife Ann

Professional viewpoint

I simply cannot imagine how I would have coped on my own

The Carer8 Thursday August 1 2013 | the times

ForumForum

Forum panel members (from left): MP Paul Burstow, Magnus Linklater of The Times, Christina Blacklaws (red dress) of Co-operative Legal Services, Trish Kearney of SCIE (front, glasses), Alison Dixey of the British Red Cross, Dr Peter Carter, chief executive and general secretary RCN, Charlie Dickson of Bield Housing & Care, and Thea Stein, chief executive of Carers Trust

Demographicchanges thatplace carersin fi ring lineHow will more care bedelivered with morecuts? An expert panelconfronts the challengeof an ageing populationBy Mike Cowley

In 1952, the year Her Majesty the Queen came to the throne, 350 tele-grams were sent out to subjects who had reached the age of 100. Move forward to 2010, the most recent

year for which fi gures are available, and the fi gure had risen to 12,000. Add to this the projection that, by 2048, the fi g-ure for centenarians will have reached 100,000 and the scale of demographic change in the UK becomes obvious.

These were just two of the statistics produced at a specially convened Fo-rum from The Times to bring sharply into focus why the need for support for carers – now numbering 7 million in the UK – has never been more important than it is today.

Chaired by The Times columnist Mag-nus Linklater CBE at the headquarters of The Co-operative Group in Man-chester – chosen as the venue because The Co-operative is in the front line of raising funds for Carers Trust – the panel of experts laid out the role carers play in a society which has changed in a way never envisaged.

At the same, the panel gave clear indications that, if more support was available, it would signifi cantly reduce the pressure on the NHS in areas such as emergency visits to A&E and the subsequent bed-blocking often seen with elderly dementia sufferers. The option of failure to address the issue was also clearly spelt out – it would mean disaster, with the health and so-cial infrastructure facing collapse.

Again and again it was pointed out that the support should not be made available to carers because they fall into the “nice and fl uffy” category and it was morally right – but because it made fi s-cal sense. There were also calls for leg-

islation to get the message home, just as there had been to get child support into the mainstream and smoking out of it.

Under the guidance of the chairman, the delegates attempted to address the challenge presented by a population that may be living longer but which re-mains plagued by illness in later years. Also not forgotten were the young adult carers – more than half a million in all – who find themselves trapped in the roles of looking after parents or friends, many of these being alcohol or drug addicts, or suffering from mental problems.

Again, all this is being played out against a background of Government cutbacks to the very services that sup-port carers. But the consensus view – voiced by Thea Stein, chief executive of Carers Trust – appeared to be that it was not a question of giving carers more money, but of better allocation of the available funds to provide the criti-cal support they need.

Thea Stein also raised the question of what is the social contract that ex-ists in families – and between families and the state – about the provision of care, saying she has struggled with this because every case is different. She also questioned the definition of all caring as being “bad and onerous” and need-ing charity.

“There’s a very large element of car-ing which is part of the normal familial contract,” she said. “But then there is the world which I am increasingly part of – the expectation of working 24/7, learning a range of quasi-nursing skills, having to become a complex care man-ager, all unpaid. That doesn’t feel right.”

With former care services minister Paul Burstow MP having travelled up from London to take part in the Fo-rum, it reflected the extent to which his interest in the subject had far from diminished since he left his ministerial post in 2012. As such, he was able to update the panel on the current status of the Care Bill, for which he had been a prime moving force while in office, drafting the legislation that is currently going through parliament.

“The focus of that legislation, that white paper,” Mr Burstow said, “which I think is really central to this debate about carers, is to give primacy to the idea of wellbeing as being the organis-ing principle of the way in which the system should work.

“It should not just be about the well-being of the person who has needs for care and support, but actually giving equal standing to the carer in the re-lationship, and making sure that their wellbeing is assured.”

He went on to discuss “the quiet rev-olution”, in which being old is the new norm – which means, in turn, that the number of family members available to be carers is diminishing, so increasing the pressure on those who are carers.

So should it be left to the nursing community to do the caring? Not ac-cording to Dr Peter Carter, chief execu-tive and general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing. “I’ve been a great advocate of upping the role of carers,” he said, “and people sometimes say to me: ‘How can you possibly say that? Surely you should be advocating that all of this should be done by nurses and health care assistants?’

“Well, I don’t necessarily think that’s the case. And even if I did think it was, it’s simply unaffordable. Without the use of carers, the thing currently would col-lapse – let alone what’s going to be hap-pening in the future. I say, we are where we are, and it’s about moving forward, how to cope with this huge challenge. There is no one to really blame for this, we have simply sleepwalked into the situation.”

Having undertaken an overview of the problem of care, the panel moved on to discussions of specifi c issues – with a key one being how to fund support. “This is always going to be an issue,” said Charlie Dickson of Bield Housing & Care.

“I recently noticed on television that Glasgow City Council are closing three day care centres for people with learn-ing diffi culties. And the very next item was that the City Council were spend-ing £5 million on upgrading the parks. And you begin to think there needs to be some joined-up thinking here. The

local authorities in particular are so rigid and they don’t have an overarching view of life in general. It’s all about ‘No, this is the parks budget and this is the care budget.’

Mr Dickson went on to say: “I’m con-cerned about the increasing demand on our services, particularly in relation to the exploding demographics – but at the same time there seems to be reduced re-sources. So that’s a constant challenge. I think we’re at a crossroads in how we provide care in the future, and that obvi-ously impacts on carers.

“On a personal note, my mother-in-law passed away a year today, this very day, and my wife and I cared for her for four months before she died. I’m a trained nurse by profession, my wife’s a trained nurse by profession, but we found that extremely diffi cult. I think we need to look at things totally differently going forward.“

The need to change the culture among professionals was also the issue taken up by Trish Kearney, the direc-tor of innovation and development at the Social Care Institute for Excellence. “Our remit is to fi nd out what works – that includes what people want,” she told the Forum. “There’s a big issue around carers and the presumptions that people make about what they are meant to do, and what they want.

It should not just beabout thecared-for but about giving equal standing to the carer

The Carerthe times | Thursday August 1 2013 9

ForumForum

“It could all be a lot better if peo-ple just got helped a bit to find out what they wanted and so enable them to make some choices. So how do we manage a culture – a professional cul-ture and a social culture – that doesn’t actually think like that at the mo-ment?”

One Forum delegate who had some very clear views on how to help car-ers was Alison Dixey of the British Red Cross. Her organisation is always on standby should a crisis hit a carer – and so impact on the people for whom they care. When a carer is involved in an accident, the Red Cross are on hand to take over the caring role until the carer is back on their feet.

However, whereas the Red Cross works closely with hospitals to iden-tify carers who are brought into A&E, Alison Dixey is concerned that not enough is currently being done to identify the hidden army of carers be-fore they hit crisis point. The problem here is that carers do not often re-cognise themselves as carers when it comes to a question of looking after family members, seeing this in terms of duty rather than an enforced role.

“We as a sector need help to identify hidden carers and ensure that they get the support that they need,” she said, “and how we integrate that so it in-cludes all of the providers, health and social care. GPs, pharmacists, other statutory and voluntary organisa-tions are doing that work and actually identifying people who don’t necessar-ily identify themselves as a carer and therefore don’t get any support at all

until they hit the real crisis – when we step in. But there simply needs to a unified plan, enforced by legislation if necessary.”

The Forum panel member repre-senting The Co-operative was Christi-na Blacklaws of The Co-operative Le-gal Services. As a lawyer, she added a new dimension to the entire carer de-bate by questioning the human rights issues facing carers.

“I think,” she said, “and I use my words advisedly here, that we are deal-ing here with a fundamental issue of human rights. We are talking about ex-ploitation – discrimination, you could probably add – and we can’t take it se-riously enough as a society.

“I’m pleased the Government is ad-dressing this, but perhaps it isn’t doing enough. Perhaps in addition to what is going on, really significant public education is needed which educates

us all – employers, employees, carers, and those who are cared for about the importance of this role in society. We can’t ignore it. It is fundamentally im-portant.”

The feeling was that, apart from a better allocation of available funds, a major step forward in resolving the crisis-in-care issue was to involve car-ers as key members of the community support teams.

Winding up the debate, Magnus Linklater said he had been “intrigued” that, apart from the economic and health issues involved in the multi-lay-er debate, the moral issue was also still considered significant. “I think there’s a fascinating balance to be struck be-tween the individual and the state,” he said. “It is clear that the state does have an obligation, but on the other hand there is a fierce sense of privacy and family obligation.“

The Forum members��Magnus Linklater CBE, The Times columnist, Forum chairman�� Christina Blacklaws, director of policy, The Co-operative Legal Services�� Alison Dixey, British Red Cross regional operations director�� Paul Burstow, Liberal Democrat MP for Sutton and Cheam�� Thea Stein, Carers Trust chief executive�� Charlie Dickson, director of care services with Bield Housing & Care�� Trish Kearney, director of innovation and development, Social Care Institute for Excellence��Dr Peter Carter, chief executive and general secretary, Royal College of Nursing

��Carers too nervousto admit their statusCarers are reported to be nervous about letting employers know that this is the case, due to concern that they will be passed over promotion – so creating a new version of what was previously known as “the maternity issue”. And when they are allowed time off for carer duties, it is often recorded by the computer system as being off sick, eventually triggering a warning.

��When identifying carers was too muchNigel Sparrow, from the Royal College of General Practitioners, who was due to be a delegate at the Forum but had to pull out at the last minute, recently did some work in his practice where they put in place a very simple screening tool to assess who was a carer. Once compiled, the names and contact details were then sent to the local authority. After six weeks of receiving the data, the local authority phoned the practice and said: “Could you stop identifying carers, please? We haven’t got the resources to deal with it.”

��Carers raised alarm in Mid StaffsIt was carers who fi rst raised the alarm that all was not well with the Mid Stafford-shire Health Authority.

��Mirror, mirror – no longer on the wallThe wife of an Alzheimer’s patient had found her hus-band becoming increasingly aggressive. Fortunately, the intervention of a specialist nurse solved the problem. She made a series of sugges-tions to help – one of these being to remove all the mirrors in the house, as she had observed the patient become agitated when he caught sight of his own refl ection even fl eetingly.The course of action was followed by an almost instant reduction in the ag-gressive behaviour, illustrat-ing the benefi ts of interven-tion by specialists.

��Identifying young carers – or notCarers Trust has found that avoiding the term “carer” in posters designed to attract young carers to events has worked. Instead, they ask simple questions such as: “Do you make breakfast for your mum and dad?” and this has resulted in a far more signifi cant turnout.

��Death wish granted to 15 per centOf the 65 per cent of peo-ple nearing death who want to die at home, 15 per cent eventually do it – and they have almost always had a carer advocating for them.

��Half NHS patients now over-65sOver 50 per cent of the people in Britain’s hospitals are aged over 65, so it is increasingly becoming an old age service. Yet surveys show that 40 per cent of these people do not need to be there, having been admit-ted because they developed conditions that could have been prevented.

��End-of-their-tethercarers giving upThere have been several recent reports of carers tak-ing relatives for whom they care to hospital – and leaving them there because they have come to the end of their tether.

��Hospital calls it quits at 3amOne carer received a 3am phonecall from the hospital where her husband was being treated, saying that he was being sent home now. He duly arrived home, hav-ing been put in a taxi.

��Hiding behind data protectionThe Times Forum heard that the NHS is “information hoarding” rather than shar-ing it with other profession-als and family carers, so cre-ating even further hardships for patients. When tackled about this, the NHS often hides behind data protec-tion legislation. This is yet another issue that Carers Trust intends to tackle.

The real-life issues surrounding carersThe Times Forum debate on carers was peppered with anecdotes and statistics which helped to paint a true – if somewhat disturbing – picture of what is happening out there:

Thursday August 1 2013 | the times

The Carer10

Care Provision

New age of challenge for old ageLet’s be positive aboutthe demographic and economic changes thatnow face providers of care, say the innovative executives at Bield. Rick Wilson reports

To paraphrase the words of Charles Dickens, it may be the worst of economic times these days, especially for the elderly; but it can also be the best of

times. That is a philosophy voiced with feeling by near-namesake Charles Dick-son, director of care services with Bield Housing & Care, a proud Scottish organi-sation currently taking ideas about later-years care into challenging and innovative areas.

The essential challenge Bield faces is one of imposed change. Government belt-tightening is being passed on to local au-thorities, and the starkly immediate risk for this important provider – with its wide range of housing and services for 15,000 older people across 23 local authority ar-eas north of the Border – is that its hard-won reputation for quality is coming un-der increasing pressure.

The irony is that, while Bield has more than 3,000 sheltered and retirement properties and over 1,000 very sheltered flats for rent, 15 care homes and numer-ous home and day care projects, as a char-ity it can reasonably claim not to be in hot pursuit of profits.

“To be frank, if we break even on care services in any year we reckon we’re do-ing well,” says Mr Dickson, who answers more readily to Charlie. The Glasgow-based executive is speaking at the char-ity’s Edinburgh office in a sparkling new housing complex off Leith Walk, which

somehow reflects the long-established or-ganisation’s continuing freshness. Indeed, Mr Dickson says: “We are here to posi-tively celebrate a different stage in people’s lives. I suspect some other providers might not see it that way, but we are not all about generating profits.”

Economic viability is vital to the Bield organisation, however, and its marketing is highly sophisticated – with glossy and professionally produced publicity material – delivering impressive figures, topped by an annual turnover of £42 million. That pays the salaries of 1,250 staff members, with the rest devoted to reinvestment in housing stock, care homes and the organi-sation’s ever-growing involvement in care services.

Like many providers, Bield has found funding for new housing increasingly difficult to come by, forcing it to look at alternative options to meet the growing demands of an ageing population.

“We recently rebranded ourselves,” says business support manager Kathy Crom-bie, “by removing the word ‘association’ from our title and adding the word ‘care’. And it’s a natural progression for us, as care has long been an important part of our offering and is becoming more so. We champion personal independence too, which is why we added the phrase ‘Free to Be’ to our logo.”

If it were a human being, Bield would be at its very best right now – in the prime

of its early-forties life, with the energy of youth and wisdom of experience. And that wisdom has given it a refreshing view on the subject of lifespan. In the same way that it will not be writing itself off when its current age is doubled, it puts a high value on its clients’ quality and en-joyment of life – however long that might turn out to be.

Having a genuine regard for these often-frail service-users is how Bield (an ancient Scottish word meaning “shelter”) sees itself as different, and it likes to think innovatively, constantly coming up with new ideas with respect for the customer at their core.

One outstanding example of this is how service-users were recently given a decisive say in appointing a new day care manager at Bield’s Munro Court centre in Anniesland, Glasgow. This groundbreak-ing initiative proved a hit with service-users, who gratefully took the chance to form an interviewing panel and ask questions such as: “What do you hope to achieve by working at our day care cen-tre?” and “How would you include us in the running of the day care centre?”

It was important to existing staff that a new care team member would be well liked by the service-users – and interest-

Teaching a higher-tech Tommy

Talented and friendly volunteers are always in demand by Bield Housing & Care – be they befrienders, meal-makers or computer experts.

Could you teach someone to email? Senior citizens can be much quicker to learn and more receptive than some young-sters might imagine.

Seventeen-year-old Martin knows that very well. He has been matched with 82-year-old Bield resident Tommy for nearly a year now and the pair have made great progress demolishing any mystique that the modern

communication system may once have had for the older man.

Tommy, based in West Lothian, wanted to be “on a level” with his grandchildren, who are “computer savvy” – like most of the younger generation – and who live south of the Border. Martin is studying for his Highers and his ambition is to be a doctor. So he believes that becoming a Silver Surfer Tutor with Bield will give him some valuable experience of communicating with people.

In the meantime, the teenager has given Tommy the confidence to get online, send

emails to his grandchildren, and even to set up his first Skype call.

“There’s never a dull moment,” says Martin. “I’m teaching Tommy about comput-ers, but he’s also taught me a thing or two. Last week we googled Miles Davis – the modern jazzman. I had never heard of him, but now I know all about him. Tommy and I both look forward to the banter at our weekly meetings.”�� Interested? To find out more about being a volunteer with Bield, call 0131-273 4000 or visit www.bield.co.uk/volunteers

The quality of (later) life...

Charlie Dickson: optimistic view

Partnership: Martin with senior pupil Tommy

We are here to celebratea different stage in people’s lives, it’s not all about profits

The Carerthe times | Thursday August 1 2013 11

Day Care by Bield provides “a friendly, relaxed service offering a choice of activities and opportunities to meet others and have an enjoyable day within comfortable, accessible sur-

roundings […] It provides a much-needed break for both the older person and those who help them day to day, with transport to and from the centres and meals being all part of the service”.

But what about later-in-the-day care? Bield Evening Care is a new service being trialled in response to a need highlighted by the organisa-tion’s staff. Managers of day care centres hold regular meetings with carers, and high on their recent wish-lists was the desire to see traditional day care extended into the evenings.

Staff and carers alike know that dementia is not a nine-to-five illness. Nor is the need for a bit of companionship a daytime-only requirement.

The main barrier to setting up evening care was funding. Cash-strapped local authorities

could not help. At Bield, however, they don’t give up at the first hurdle. Working with their fundraiser, they sought alternative sources to help get this innovative service off the ground.

After securing funds via Shared Care Scot-land, Creative Breaks, the new service began in October at Whitehill Court in Kirkintilloch. And within a few months it is already in great demand – exceeding all expectations and already with a waiting list.

Having seen first-hand the benefits and popularity of this innovative service, Bield has secured funding for a further two projects – in Milngavie and Falkirk – and is intent on seeking out funding to roll out the service to the benefit of many more dementia-sufferers and their carers.

No price can be put on the sense of freedom that comes from enabling carers to have a little extra time to do the things that we all take for granted. And the service-users have a great

time too, benefiting from outings and activities with their new friends.

Linda Anderson, a carer, sums up what this new service means to her and her family. “I can’t express enough the tremendous impact the evening service has made to the quality of my free time,” she says. “While I have always been appreciative of the day care service and the precious time it has afforded me over the years, the extended service is so much more beneficial.

“I can now leave the house and be out for the whole day – which not only allows me to have a leisurely visit round the shops, but most importantly lets me see friends or visit family, virtually impossible these days as I am effec-tively housebound looking after my mum.

“It is very isolating being a carer, and the evening service has given me the freedom to go out and be ‘normal’ for the day while knowing that my mother is being well looked after.”

ingly, Julie McLoughlin, the candidate ranked most highly by the service-users, was also the one chosen by the formal in-terview panel (which had fewer bounda-ries, being able to peruse application forms, police records and suchlike).

Also interestingly, Bield’s chief ex-ecutive Brian Logan was appointed with similar democratic input from staff and tenants. “It is fantastic to hear of services like Munro Court being led by the needs and wants of service-users,” he says. “Bield’s ‘Free to Be’ approach remains at the core of everything we do, and this is a perfect example of how service-users are given control over the type of care they receive.”

Mr Logan adds: “Our specialisation is housing and care for older people. The di-versity of accommodation, care and sup-port we offer makes us unique in Scot-land. We are an ambitious organisation and want to be the best at what we do. It’s what helps keep us one step ahead of other providers.

“We are not just about providing a home and care for older people; we ac-tively encourage them to live life, to be active and to enjoy their lives.”

The boss is quick to acknowledge, how-ever, that times are tougher than they

were when it comes to capturing new business in the face of a new culture of less funding being made available to the greater need created by an ever-ageing population. “Like many other housing and care providers,” he says, “Bield is fac-ing the challenges of reducing income against greater demand for its services. We have a five-year strategy to see us through to 2018, and so far the plan is working. We are growing and developing new services every year.”

So what else is new? There is of course better access to technical systems that enhance leisure – such as internet-ready computers for the development of “silver surfers” – but more crucially new tech-nology that increases security. Examples of this are BR24 (Bield Response 24), oth-erwise known as the “phoneline lifeline” – a personal 24-hour monitoring service that can alert response teams to medi-cal or other emergencies. Then there is the satellite-assisted GPS tracker system that allows residents to get out and about while, back at the ranch, their wherea-bouts are always known.

This technology has particular rele-vance in the context of two new ways of doing things that Bield has lately adopted. Firstly, there is the home care programme run by Bield for more than a year now – since it came to the conclusion that, ac-cording to Kathy Crombie, “some of our tenants were clearly feeling let down in terms of limited choices on offer from other providers.”

Charlie Dickson explains further: “We knew we could provide home care that was flexible and more in tune with our older people’s needs, but we simply couldn’t compete with the incredibly low hourly rates put forward by private com-petitors. The result was that, after sub-mitting several unsuccessful tenders, we decided to chop off one corner of the tra-ditional triangular relationship between the service buyer, provider and user and develop our own tenants’ purchase sys-tem.”

So how does that now work? “Ten-ants living in sheltered and very sheltered properties are offered the opportunity to

purchase home care from us,” Mr Dick-son says. “They may use their own funds – benefits, etc – or pay through what’s called self-directed support, which means a sum is forthcoming from the local au-thority allowing you to choose for your-self the care package that you want for yourself – hopefully from our organisa-tion.”

The service offers freedom of choice and much more flexibility than tradition-al home care. Bield will even let neigh-bours share the costs of buying into this service.

That theme – of relative independence and choice – continues into another stay-at-home option offered by Bield. This is Housing With Care, an alternative to care home ensconcement. It involves staying in your own flat and enjoying all the inde-pendence that offers, while Bield provides 24-hour care – the only element paid for by the local authority, while the rental el-ement remains at its normal market rate.

“The benefits of our service to the customer,” Charlie Dickson says, “is that you’re living in your own home, you’re not moving anywhere, you’ve been there a good ten years, the care is provided to you – and, rather than being in a care home where your meal times, for instance, might be much more insti-

tutionalised, the structure of your day is tailored by you and for you.

“Housing With Care is a win-win ser-vice for everyone, and especially so for cash-strapped local authorities that are faced with the challenges of commission-ing care for an increasingly older popula-tion.”

An important variation on the theme of care delivered in the home is Flexi-care, which encourages and helps people with dementia and their families to keep leading full and varied lives in their own communities. Support, provided in the customer’s own home, can be anything from 30 minutes a week to daily assis-tance. The service is unique as it can in-clude help with household tasks, getting out and about to visit friends or relatives, or continuing with a hobby. Flexicare is currently available in Fife, Glasgow and North Lanarkshire.

Over all the varied range of services discussed by Bield’s executives, the words “choice” and “independence” keep com-ing up. “For us at Bield,” says Kathy Crombie, “it’s about living life to the full, giving older people the freedom to do the things they love. Why should age be a barrier in any situation? We believe that anything is possible with the right help and support.”

Chief executive Brian Logan: vision

We have a five-yearstrategy to see us through to 2018 andso far theplan is working

Having their say: the cared-for vote for their choice of carer

Evening Care delivers that welcome sense of freedom

The Carer12 Thursday August 1 2013 | the times

12

Text to win £3,000travel vouchers andall proceeds go to Carers TrustBecause we all need a bitof time out now and then

For full details on this competitionand how to enter visitwww.co-operative.coop/winwin

Carers Trust is a registered charity in England and Wales (1145181) and in Scotland (SC042870)

The programmes will raise aware-ness, support legislative change and develop new services – to provide coping mechanisms, emotional support and a voice to break down

barriers. They will also help unpaid young adult carers achieve what many take for granted – staying in school or taking up a career or further educational opportunities, and providing the time to consider their own needs and aspirations

Time to change – Grants will be awarded to 50 local services across the UK to under-take innovative projects which will target and support the 14-25 age group with regard to career goals, social development, emotional support, financial management and health and wellbeing on an emotional and physical

level. The programme will transform lives for the long-term.

Time out – Targeting hard-to-reach young adult carers, this programme consists of structured residential breaks with activities encouraging attendees to address the barriers they face when moving on to the next step in their lives. They will have the chance to focus on themselves and their ambitions and to put their own physical and mental health first.

Time to connect – A 24-hour, seven-day-a-week online peer support system targeting young adult carers who have no services nearby or who need support outside of regular hours. Using social networking, it will provide access to advice and information, offering mutual support among carers to reduce isola-tion and build coping mechanisms.

Time to be heard – The role that young adult carers have in caring for family members is often not well understood, and too few have the confidence or support to make their voice heard. This project is designed to give them the chance to talk directly with opinion-formers, employers, those in education and policy-makers to bring about lasting change for carers.

Time to be noticed – A national campaign to raise awareness of carers so that they can get the support and recognition they deserve. By juxtaposing the needs, aspirations and opportunities of the general public against those of young adult carers, Carers Trust aims to create empathy, raise awareness and challenge and change opinions at all levels of society.

“I continue to be overwhelmed by the effort that The Co-operative’s staff, members and customers are putting into its partner-ship with Carers Trust,” said Thea Stein, chief executive of Carers Trust. “At the start, we dared to dream of a transformative year for Carers Trust and for the young people all around us who desperately need our support and services.

“I am delighted to say that the money raised is already making a difference – it is working. We are hearing from young people across the UK, thrilled that this hidden issue is being recognised, and it is thanks to the staggering support of The Co-operative.”

�� For more information, visit www.co-operative.coop/charityoftheyear

There are currently 6.4 million carers in the UK and this figure is likely to rise by around 60 per cent over the next 30 years. It is estimated that the alternative cost of the voluntary

care provided by friends and relatives to loved ones would exceed £119 billion per annum: enough to bankrupt the country. This is an issue which the Government cannot afford to ignore.

Many people, in spite of often onerous care responsibilities, want to or need to juggle work and caring. Indeed, the fact that they do so in large numbers reduces the welfare burden and supports those individuals to continue to integrate with and contribute to society beyond their caring roles. In these circumstances, does the state do enough to help support working carers?

There is legislation in place which enables carers to request flexible working arrange-ments, provided the person has been working for the employer for a continuous period of 26 weeks and they care for a relative or someone they live with.

In theory, you can make an application which can only be denied for “business reasons”. If not successful, it can be challenged and then reviewed through the business’s grievance procedures – and, if certain conditions can be met, taken up with the employment tribunal. Advice should be taken in specific cases.

However, in reality, many carers in work are wary of telling their employer about their situation. They fear, sometimes with good cause, that they will be passed over for promotion or in some other way discrimi-nated against.

Even if the carer is open with a sympathetic employer, in small businesses it can be difficult to accommodate even minor requests without the possibility of compensation for any business loss incurred. Major employers may have greater awareness and more flex-ibility, but it is still often a challenge.

The Care Bill, which is going through par-liament at present, introduces the concept of the rights of carers to assessment and support. Given that it is evidently in society’s best interests to assist those with caring respon-sibilities to continue in paid employment if at all possible, surely parliament should be actively considering the fiscal and cultural benefits of increasing rights and providing additional support for working carers?

As a society, we should be celebrating this army of unpaid, unsung heroes who deliver such a valuable service. Supporting carers to remain or to gain employment seems to me to be a complete win/win.

Fun delivers fundsT

he term 24/7 has come to signify working round the clock – a situ-ation that the estimated 500,000 unpaid young adult carers in the UK often find themselves in as they take

on caring responsibilities to look after loved ones, all too often at the expense of their own aspirations.

That is why The Co-operative selected July 24 – the Wednesday of last week – as the sym-bolic date for a nationwide day of fundraising. The idea was to help alleviate the plight of this group of 14- to 25-year-olds who are more than twice as likely not to be engaged in education, employment or training as they care for a fam-ily member or friend who is ill, frail, disabled or who has mental health or addiction problems and cannot cope without their support.

The Co-operative’s Charity of the Year part-nership with Carers Trust – selected after al-most 50,000 staff, a record turnout, took part in a vote – unites colleagues across its exten-sive business interests. Staff in its food, finan-cial services, pharmacy, funeralcare and legal services departments are all fully behind the campaign.

Last week saw colleagues across the UK taking part in diverse events, from firewalks to fancy dress, from bag-packing (in The Co-op-

erative food stores, naturally) to bake sales, along with skydiving, and even cycling from Land’s End to John o’ Groats. Teaming up with consumer goods manufacturer Procter & Gamble – with health, beauty and household

goods on promotion in-store until August 27 – will see The Co-operative food section raise some £300,000 alone. The money will be used to fund “Time to Connect”, an online peer sup-port system for young adult carers.

The extent of the problem, due to the rapid growth of the army of young adult carers, has been described as “a ticking time bomb”. Form-ing part of The Co-operative’s commitment to inspire young people, the money raised – there is a pledge to raise £5 million during 2013 – will provide desperately needed breaks, informa-tion, advice, support and services for unpaid young adult carers.

“Young people in our communities are tak-ing on incredible levels of practical and emo-tional caring responsibilities and desperately need our support,” says Euan Sutherland, The Co-operative Group’s chief executive. “Al-though affecting most families at some time, it remains an often hidden issue. The fantastic commitment and support shown by our staff, members and customers is raising awareness of this issue – putting it firmly on the agenda while making positive differences to thou-sands of young lives.”�� Carers Trust wristbands will be available in all Co-operative food and pharmacy branches later this month.

Considering the employment law rights of carers

By Christina Blacklaws Director of policy with The Co-operative Legal Services

Awareness

Showing support in action

Co-operation: Steve Murrells, chief executive of retail, helps Blackpool-based young carers Shantelle and Amber get to grips with two giant wristbands

Money raised by The Co-operative will fund five ‘time’themed programmes with Carers Trust