PPlog

I really like this: Manifesto for the post of National Director of Patient Insight with the NHS Commissioning Board The principles that will guide me if appointed: • I will press for power to be given to communities in all decisions about the commissioning of health services – for local, specialist and national services. • I will not align myself with the disingenuous euphemisms of government which claim to be putting patients at the ‘heart of’, ‘centre of’ and in the ‘driving seat of’ of services. I am in support of real power and influence for patients, carers and the public in the commissioning of services. • I will challenge the empty ritual of participation. I support communities having the real clout needed to affect the outcome of all commissioning processes in health care. • I am against participation without redistribution of power and the similar empty and frustrating processes currently promoted by the government in the name of public participation. • I bel...

The reports in today's media of big increases of children taken into care reinforce the increasing evolution of the misuse of social work education and skills by public authorities. Child care social work in the UK now comprises nothing more than gangs of CHILD PROTECTION POLICE. There needs to be an honest recognition of the fact that this is a separate and distinct profession with specialist skills. With a separation of these functions away from Child Care itself and attachment of the Social Work Police to the Police Authorities - that would, in any case, result in better essential child protection communications, removing children from their parents could be fairer, better evidenced and a more appropriate and accountable part of the criminal justice system. It could well be that social work training might be part of their very specialist education. In over thirty years of professional practice, my child care work consisted of working in partnership with families and childre...

Press Release For Immediate Use: 22 March 2012 Disabled people to protest at company which assesses fitness of disabled people to work, but says ‘No Entry’ to wheelchair users. Disabled people and supporters will mount a protest on Friday morning (11am on 23 March) outside the Norwich premises of ATOS - a company which carries out medical assessments of disabled people who receive benefits - but which has a ‘No Entry’ policy to wheelchairs users. ATOS’s Norwich offices and other offices around the country are not accessible to wheelchair users. Norwich Access Group and Norfolk Coalition of Disabled People (NCODP) are assisting the protest at ATOS’s premises in Duke Street, Norwich. ATOS is employed by the government to assess whether unemployed disabled people receiving benefits are fit to work. Last year The Guardian newspaper revealed that ATOS had been set targets by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) on the numbers of people to fail their assessments....

Well! Miller the Killer beat us in that battle - the Welfare Act is now a reality. Time to regroup and move on. The next campaign stage, for me, is the coalition Disability Strategy and there may be several skirmishes ahead. One of  our allies here is the Parliamentary Human Rights Committee which published its report on the rights of disabled people to independent living on St David's Day (1st March 2012) - you can find the report here. This report is an important document for us, not in the least because it champions the United Nations Convention on the Right of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD) .  But the committee is not confident in the recognition of its importance by service users and carers.  It says: “The evidence we received suggested that awareness of the UNCRPD among disabled people was low. Disability Action suggested that such a lack of awareness resulted in a weakness in the disability rights movement.” Further underlining its importance the committe...

From Roget: Synonyms for DISABLED: Synonyms: attenuate d, battered, blunt ed, damage d, debilitate d, disarmed, disenabled, disqualified, enervate d, enfeebled, exhaust ed, hamstrung, handicap ped, harm ed, hocked, hogtied, hurt , immobilized, impair ed, incapacitated, invalidate d, kiboshed, knocked out, maim ed, mangled, mar red, mutilate d, muzzled, paralyze d, pinioned, prostrate d, put out of action, rendered incapable, ruin ed, sabotage d, sap ped, shatter ed, shot down, spoil ed, taken out , thrown monkeywrench in, total led, unbraced, undermine d, unfit, unstrengthened, weaken ed, wrecked. What do you think? Heddwch. Mike.

If the NHS is safe in Tory hands—words that we shall never let the Prime Minister forget—how come that more than 160 hospitals and 11,000 beds have been  478 closed since the Tories came to power? How come that more than 2,000 doctors and 10,000 nurses and midwives are now on the dole? How come that an unprecedented number of senior members of the medical profession—the vast majority of them by no means Socialists—have gone public in the outcry against the cuts? And how come that the chairman of the BMA... issued a public warning only two days ago saying:  The gap between what we can do for patients and what we actually do is steadily widening"?  That has been reinforced by the TUC policy statement, "The Growing Gap", issued today, which highlights the £0.5 billion gap between needs and resources in the NHS. The Tories have never believed in the NHS. Indeed, from the start of their Administration they have gone out of their way to express outright hostility to it. The P...

This will upset many people. Since I was at college in 1970 doing my training for a social work qualification, I have had a special interest in professional social work standards, values and ethics. Throughout 30years +' social work practice I pursued this interest, contributing to the development of the original British Association of Social Work (BASW) Code of Ethics, researching and comparing this with the International Federation of Social Work Code, and other like activities including battling with social work managers about the general disregard of professional standards, values and ethics by managers and too many working practitioners. It is clear that one of the problems here is the disillusion for newly qualified social workers around the standards, values and ethics they have carefully but enthusiatically absorbed from their training being jettisoned when they start work proper - especially in local authority employment. Some protest but soon realise their career pa...