You are currently browsing the monthly archive for March 2010.
In 2050 I shall be 70. By this age my maternal grandmother had had cancer 5 times, polio once and a life altering stroke. She was able to remain in her home until she died, but only because of the enduring support of Macmillan nurses, Marie Curie Support, a carer and respite provision at a hospice. She loved the familiarity of her home, and was fierce regarding the dignity of being able to choose where she resided. I am grateful she had this choice.
I am not naive. Choice costs and protecting the dignity of the older person requires sufficient investment. The Kings Fund have estimated that this cost will be £16.8bn in 2026. By 2050 this will have escalated exponentially.
There was a buzz moment at the Charities Parliament event with Rt Hon. Andy Burnham last month. A moment of energy and agreement when Mr Burnham asked people to indicate whether they thought the proposed contributions towards Social Care Reform should be voluntary or compulsory. The room voted 138:2 in favour of a bespoke compulsory tax. We are not naïve, there is a cost that must be born, but it is a price that offers an increasingly older population of quality social care provision, provision none of us can know whether we will depend upon.
At the Charities Parliament it felt as though we were foreshadowing a momentous decision, voting for a reform which government has likened to the foundation of the NHS in 1948. But momentus decisions require holding your ground. The economically powerful voices in society may not be won round, but the government must lead on behalf of the people, with the interest of the aging constituent in mind. With an election looming, the White Paper produced yesterday may be the only marker in the ground that we can achieve today, but we will continue to press for detail and for financial commitment. I cant help but wonder whether the governments decision to postpone reform until 2015 and focus post- election on establishing a commission to help reach consensus is an error, whether it is bowing to the alarmist reaction of the opposition about the fondly titled ‘death tax’ and failing to gather its conviction to hold their ground and press ahead.
The 30 year old Nancy calls on government to be bold, to hold its ground, and to roll the plans out further to envelop all groups in society who depend upon social care, for I know, I and those around me may well wish we had pushed reform through quicker when we come to depend upon the services this reform focus’ upon .
Today Shirley Chaplin takes her employers, the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital, to an employment tribunal after she was moved to an office job when she refused to stop wearing a crucifix necklace. This follows a weekend which saw the spotlight fixed on the issue of religious discrimination as 7 Senior Bishops wrote to the Sunday Telegraph expressing disquiet regarding the perceived discrimination against those who hold Christian beliefs in Britain. Referring to the case of Shirley Chaplin they wrote: Read the rest of this entry »
The Secretary of State for Health took the stage in front of a full audience including Age Concern Lambeth who had co-sponsored the event, L’arche Lambeth and other health organisations from South London and across the UK. Mr Burnham admitted that Labour had not done enough to help the elderly across Britain but, addressing the Third Sector, he pointed to a way forward: “Make me an offer. Tell me what you are bringing to the table. Then we can start a dialogue between the department of health, the voluntary sector and faith organisations.”
After Mr Burnham’s speech, he was harangued by a voluntary sector that seems to have previously been shut out of the debate but could potentially offer a brighter healthier future not just for the elderly, but those with disabilities and others that are vulnerable too. Those present acknowledged the need for more partnership in going forward, and the recognition that innovation so often lies with those working at the grass roots.
The Rev Steve Chalke MBE put his finger on the pulse when he told the Secretary of State for Health that the church and the voluntary sector has a part to play to fill in the gaps of a patchy healthcare system. “What can we do to get more involved?” exclaimed Chalke.
Andy Burnham responded to the demand for promoting partnership between charities and government. “We will have to draw on the voluntary sector well to get the country through this problem… If we don’t act now when will the chance come again?”
If a spirit of partnership develops between charities and government, the first obstacle will be how to fund more services for the elderly. Should it come out of general taxation, or should it be a voluntary sum paid by the elderly? One thing is certain if we leave social care off the agenda we will be left with yet more problems in our NHS. The more preventative work that can be done the better!
If nothing else, Andy Burnham’s pledge to consider partnership should encourage more proactive input, in South London and beyond, from the Faith and Third sector.
Click here to listen to the speech.
-
- Andy Burnham talking about the role of the voluntary sector in health services
-
- Pete Brierley Director of CP with Andy Burnham
I have had my fair share of needing to use the services of the NHS in the last decade for a whole gambit of reasons, some more serious than others and although there have been frustrations and hiccups; I have generally been served well. I am so thankful that when the chips were down I was cared for unconditionally without having to worry about how my treatment was going to be paid for!
It’s true that private healthcare can speed things up, give us better, cleaner rooms, better food , bedside TV’s that work and arguably more attentive nursing care but the fact is, universally, without exception, living in the UK gives us access to healthcare provision that most of us take for granted. Can you imagine living in a society where the marginalised, the underprivileged, the people at the bottom of every social pile also have to worry about even the basic form of healthcare?
News just in that President Obama has narrowly won the vote in the House of Representatives which should result in extending healthcare provision for 32 million Americans is awesome. Obama said, “Tonight, at a time when the pundits said it was no longer possible, we rose above the weight of our politics. This legislation will not fix everything that ails our healthcare system, but it moves us decisively in the right direction. This is what change looks like.”
It’s fantastic that things will be ‘changing’ on the ‘other side of the pond’, but the battle will rage on as Republicans across the US fight any implementation of the reform, believing it will drive up costs, increase the budget deficit and reduce patients’ choices.
Here in the UK however we are facing battles of our own on many fronts including those surrounding the NHS and health and social care provision. It has been intimated that numerous hospital closures are inevitable over the next five years due to a massive reconfiguration of the health service, following funding cuts and the increase in private hospitals – we of course eagerly await Alastair Darling’s Wednesday delivery to assess the temperature of the current reality!
It seems to me though that the very ethos of health service is in danger of being eroded, that the move towards private healthcare is gaining momentum and arguably may, in our lifetimes, become essential if we want to maintain the level of care we have enjoyed in various guises since 1948. It is certainly true to say that the multi-billion pound health service of today bears little resemblance to the one created in 1948 when the state relieved faith groups and communities of the need to care of its sick and elderly with one generous utopian fell swoop. The current metamorphosis of the NHS will potentially lead us back to unfamiliar territory where delivery of care falls increasingly to communities and the third sector. Andy Burnham, Secretary of State for Health recently visited an event hosted by Charities Parliament where he was questioned on just such matters. He openly acknowledged that the government and NHS need to explore ways of embracing the yet largely untapped resources of community faith groups and the third sector in order to achieve ‘great’, people centred, health and social care delivery across the country.
The way forward then may well depend on the innovative development of strategic partnerships across the board and rather than returning to days pre 1948, or trying to prop up our ailing existing service, we need to embrace the best of both social systems where we can still rejoice in living in a country free from the worry of whether we have taken out the right insurance to cover our hospital bills, but be thankful – as I continue to be, that we have access to what we truly need when we need it!
Sue Robbins – Executive assistant to Steve Chalke
I want to support the governments announcement of its intention to reform children’s services and prioratise the formation of family friendly policies, but I cannot help but feel cynical.
The need for family friendly policies is not new, and their climb up the table of priorities for government has been steady, this I am pleased about.Yet the new rational that is being banded about that would say that women are swing voters, that they will decide the outcome of the election, and therefore family friendly policies are the way to secure the vote of women across the country seems, to me, crass and patronizing. It is being widely reported that 53 Wards in Britain could have their results swung by women. Read the rest of this entry »
Coming home from work today the standards headline jumped out at me. I mentor a young woman currently on a gap year with Oasis UK. Threesixty is an intense year, she gets up early to work the breakfast shift at a community coffee shop, she experiences inner London schools as a volunteer learning assistant, she works with some of the least privileged young people in London, runs holiday clubs, befriends an isolated older person and the list goes on. It is not an easy year but it is a rich education that takes young people out of the context in which they’ve grown up and been schooled and shows them life in a different place. I’d recommend it to anyone, it can set you up for adulthood with a social conscience, community awareness and a richer understanding of how life is experienced by many people less privileged.
I am a big fan of the gap year but even the best gap year doesn’t replace the need for university.
I didn’t have big aspirations to go to university. I left school after A levels and got a job in Starbucks. It was the belief in me of a teacher, and her encouragement to me to apply for university which changed my plans. I ended up going to oxford and studying theology – one of the arts subject referred to as a waste of time in the Standards article.
University broadened my horizons, increased my employability and gave me new social experiences, but more importantly studying an arts subject, and specifically those incorporating history, so damned by the article, reminds us of the importance of learning, not just from the immediate experiences of society today but from the experiences of our collective past. Remembering is crucial. In remembering we re-member, we put together the experiences of the past, and reflect on them and learn from them. Although vocational courses, recommended in the article may have more natural linkage to employability, if our employability becomes the only driver for education, we will become a poorer society. We must remember, we must reflect, we must allow literature to help us think in new ways; philosophy to challenge our intellectual infrastructure; theology to prompt consideration of the role belief, tradition and story telling has in our world views; art history to reserve the place of visual art to push boundaries and raise taboo questions.
The charity sector is built on the aspirations of individuals to make the world a fairer, more equitable place. This aspiration is not built simply on aspirations of career progression, but on the vision of a transformed world we see through literature and religion; the evidence that injustice can be overturned, that we see in studying history; the challenge of great minds that we gain from philosophy.
The articles writer was right, Gap Years do give an unrivalled opportunity to gain a broader experience of life in today’s world, but it is blind in its failure to also assert the need for people to study the arts, to hold onto the lessons of history and translate them into the present so that they can inform and educate the work that we do and the action we take in the future.
Nancy Doyle – Faithworks Team leader
I may be a bit late on the uptake but if you haven’t seen Avatar then get to the cinema now, before it is too late. Cameron (Avatar’s Director) may have been beaten by ex wife Katherine Bigelow at the Bafta’s but his film is a theo political masterpiece. I was nearly put off going by friends who said it was a pathetic love story involving strange blue creatures, but decided that if only to see James Cameron’s exquisite use of cinematography it was worth it. It has undoubtedly taken cinema to the next level, using 3D graphics to explore a beautiful new world. The colours are at times blinding and the screen often seems more real than the world we see around us. However in a blog about faith and politics it would be wrong to focus too narrowly on the visual feast. Instead I want to turn my attention to the title of the film: ‘Avatar’. I’m told by a friend that avatar is a Hindu word that is used to describe the incarnation of god that brings balance to the forces of good and evil, tipping the world back towards a place of peace and well being.
In the film salvation comes through the incarnation of a human, named Jack, who is sent to the planet Pandora in a Na’vi body (Na’vi is the local people of the planet Pandora), to find out how this strange people group live. The difficulty for Jack is that he is torn between an anthropological experiment meant to genuinely learn what motivates the Na’vi, what inspires them, and what is at the core of who they are and a military operation that thinks the Na’vi are evil savages and wants to blow the people to pieces to get to the natural resources located in the heart of their habitat. If this all sounds familiar, it is meant to be. It’s a parable of our war on terror, our assault on Afghanistan and Iraq. Why is the other always so threatening? Stated simply, it is because we don’t understand their ways, their culture, their faith, their history. I’m sure that the collision of worldviews that we see causing so many wars today could be stemmed if we only took a long term view to understand, to incarnate ourselves in someone else’s world. Avatar is ripe with lessons for community development workers, NGO’s, religious leaders, and politicians. It conveys the simple truth that we must try to humble ourselves, assume that we are not always right and learn from the other.
Pete Brierley is the Director of Charities Parliament
It is fair-trade fortnight at the moment, and lent, and in response to this I have been challenging myself to consider the ethics of the infrastructures that bring the coffee I buy to the supermarket shelves, the chocolate I devour, the wine I enjoy, the carrier bags I mindlessly take, and challenged myself to think through the implications of these systems of production. It has caused me to think again that Individuals, charities, faith groups, businesses and even supermarkets all have a voice in democracy, if they will use it. Read the rest of this entry »
“I know only too well that passing legislation, or making a speech will not solve vandalism on estates, raise standards in secondary schools, or look after the elderly at risk. The job of government is to provide investment, support and infrastructure for those trying to solve problems at the local level,” said Tony Blair, five years into his premiership.[i]
In a recent article for the Royal society of Arts, Paul Ginsborg discussed two types of democracy – representative and participatory. He and others have suggested that democracy used to be focused around participation as much as representation (volunteering as much as voting), two ideas which together created a balance. However, in our modern society, the democratic process has become far more passive and is now dominated by the idea of representation, where an elected representative (a local councillor, MP, etc.) is held responsible for delivering the needs of those who voted, or who didn’t vote, for them.
Ginsborg suggests that our society needs ‘to invent new forms and practices that combine representative with participative democracy…the two can and indeed must meet… and the crucial point regarding the relationship between the two – between representative and participative democracy – is that the activity of the second guarantees the quality of the first.’[ii]
It is not enough for us to simply sit back and blame our MPs and leaders for the ails of our society; whether it be poor economic decisions, bad schooling, gang warfare, or not enough care for the elderly. We must stand up, get involved, we must begin the struggle of not just speaking at our television screens in frustration but meeting face to face with our MPs, acting in our communities. We must reshape our communities and reshape our politics from the bottom up. As Jim Wallis puts it we ‘have to look beyond what we now call politics to find leaders to address these underlying issues. A significant increase in the participation of ordinary citizens in the political process would bring…more deep-seated change…The struggle to reshape the meaning of politics is one we must engage in.’[iii]
Enter the church… it is time to get our hands dirty.
Steve Chalke – Founder, Oasis Global, Faithworks and Stop The Traffik, UN Special Advisor on Community Action Against Human Traffiking
[i] Nick Spencer, Apolitical Animal? (A Jubilee Centre Booklet, 2003) 21.
[ii] Paul Ginsborg, ‘How to Save Modern Democracy’, in RSA Journal, Summer 2008, 20-23.
[iii] Jim Wallis, The Soul of Politics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995)
