Dear Penny,

I was disappointed to read that Berkshire West PCT was placed 93rd out of 105 local authorities for spending on carers services by the recent Princess Trust for Carers Report.

The fact that the Trust had earmarked only 0.018% of its £658m budget for carers I find pretty shocking – given the increase in spending by this Government on carers.

I really welcome the extra spending that has been announced – an extra £150,000 to help carers as reported in this week’s Reading Chronicle.

However, given Reading Borough Council estimates we have between eleven and sixteen thousand carers in Reading – an significant increase on previous years I am concerned that this spending is still not at the level it is needed – given the demand that we know exists in our community.

I would like to know how this money will be spent and how much of it will be spent on services in Reading.

Reading Borough Council and partners have done significant work in recent years on a Carers Strategy. This has been tailored to deliver on the priorities identified by local carers – the top one being getting access to breaks.

Last year when I was Lead Member for Adult Social care I approved an extra £50,000 from the Council’s budget to expand the Carers Opportunities Fund which was set up to give carers access to breaks and other additional support of their choosing and as far as I know my successor Cllr Orton has done the same this year.

I would be most grateful if you could outline for me how you plan to support carers in the future and how you will be working to ensure that the £400 million pounds that has been committed is spent on what it was intended – breaks for carers.

Best wishes

Daisy

Cllr Daisy Benson
Leader, Liberal Democrat Group, Reading Borough Council
Liberal Democrat Councillor, Redlands ward

“Reading has a growing frail elderly population and these new homes will help meet this need.”

“Rob Wilson MP and I worked hard over the past year to secure the funding required from the Coalition Government to enable this project to go ahead.”

“The striking fact is that in just one year the Coalition Government and the previous administration of this Council has delivered more new Council housing than Labour managed in 20 years.”

The Coalition government is devolving responsibility for improving public health to councils and giving councils a budget to do this.

Commenting, Lib Dem Group Leader on Reading Borough Council, Cllr Daisy Benson said:

“This report shows there is an urgent need to focus resources on public health in Reading to improve the lives of children and adults – particularly in the most deprived communities.”

“Earlier this year the Lib Dem-Conservative administration of the Council set up a shadow Health and Wellbeing Board to help improve public health in Reading.

“The new Labour-run administration must show leadership and use new powers given to them by the Coalition Government to act to reduce health inequality in our Borough.”

The Department of Health has today launched a ‘Route Map for Dementia Research’ which:

• pledges up to £20 million from the Department of Health over five years for four new National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Units;
• commits the Medical Research Council to increase funding for neurodegeneration research by ten percent to £150million over the next four years to 2015;
• boosts the number of experts in the dementia field through new Academic Clinical Fellowships;
• strengthens links between public and private research sectors to identify new opportunities for partnership; and
• ensures more patients and carers get involved in research through the NIHR’s Dementia and Neurodegenerative Diseases Research Network which will facilitate research in the NHS and care home sector.

Cllr Daisy Benson commented:

“The number of people living with dementia in Reading is set to increase and last year  in response to this the Coalition administration of the Council took the decision to extend facilities for dementia sufferers.”
“Lib Dems have long recognised this issue needs urgent action. In  our 2010 manifesto  we promised to cut bureaucracy in the NHS and invest more money in dementia care and prioritise dementia research and it is great to see this promise delivered in government.”

Paul Burstow Minister for Care Services said

“Dementia is one of the biggest challenges we face. It’s an indiscriminate disease that cruelly chips away at our loved ones, leaving those living with it in fear of losing the very essence of who they are.

“We need to better understand dementia if we are to counter its effects more successfully. Research is the key to developing new treatments, transforming care and ultimately to finding a cure for this devastating disease.

“We spent almost £19 million on dementia research last year. But more must be done, that’s why the Coalition Government made this commitment to increase dementia research. I am delighted that we have been able to unveil this plan to drive forward research“.

Liberal Democrats led the calls for changes after raising serious concerns at the party’s Spring Conference in March.

The Government has completed a listening exercise during a break in the passage of the Bill to hear the concerns.

In particular, Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats want to ensure:

• The pace of change is slowed down to ensure changes are not rushed into. The changes must be evolution, not revolution
• There is no privatisation of the NHS and no special favours for the private sector. We want a level playing field, not a race to the bottom
• The NHS is properly accountable, both nationally and locally

Commenting, Cllr Daisy Benson, Group Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group on Reading Borough Council said:

“Liberal Democrats have been clear from the start that there must be no privatisation of the NHS and that it must remain universal, based on need and free at the point of use.

“I joined Lib Dem members including a large number from Reading who backed a motion calling for substantial changes to the Health & Social Care Bill when it was debated at our conference in March.

“With an ageing population and rising costs it is clear the NHS can’t stand still, but these changes are too important to get wrong.

“I am proud that Nick Clegg and my Lib Dem colleagues have been fighting to make sure the concerns raised by the public and medical professionals have been heard and addressed.”

This has been warmly welcomed by local Lib Dems.

The new mental health strategy for England promises an extra £400m for therapies, such as counselling, to increase access to them by 60% by 2015. It also stresses the need for early intervention, to nip in the bud mental health problems in children.

Mental health represents 23% of burden of disease (30% of people that walk through a GP’s door, for example) but only 11% of expenditure. One of the first speeches Nick Clegg made on becoming Liberal Democrat leader was to highlight the state of mental health provision and accuse politicians of “shamefully” turning a blind eye to the scale of mental health problems.

Under Labour the top-down approach has ultimately denied many service users the personalised support they need.

Under measures announced today We will be investing around £400 million in talking therapies over the next four years:

• an extra 1.2m people able to get treatment for depression and anxiety
• 0.5m more people will recover, many more showing measurable improvement
• 75,000 more people will be able to work, or take part in education, training or volunteering
• and more than £700m in savings, in healthcare, tax and welfare gains.

Commenting on the news, Cllr Daisy Benson, Lead Member for Health on Reading Borough Council said:

“Berkshire West was one of the first areas to pilot Talking Therapies (2009) and we are already seeing the benefits for residents in Reading in speedier recovery times from common mental health problems.”

“With one in four people expected to experience mental health problems at some point in their life it is is really important that a range of services exist in the community to support people effectively.”

“This investment is a real boost for children and adults of all areas in our area who have lacked access to this vital service in the past and I hope it means more people can benefit.”

Cllr Benson commented:

“Over the past 13 years, despite millions of taxpayers money being spent, health inequalities in parts of Reading have widened with life expectancy varying from one postcode to another.”

“This is a damning indictment of the Labour government’s failed system of centrally-imposed targets and residents deserve better.”

“These radical new proposals will place the responsibility to improve the health outcomes and life chances of local residents in the hands of elected councillors, accountable to residents , not Whitehall.”

“I hope it will enable us  to lead sustained health improvement in our Town and improve transparency and accountability for public money spent in this area.”

Creative Commons image by Salim Fadhley

It encourages care and support to be delivered in a partnership between individuals, communities, the voluntary sector, the NHS and councils – including wider support services, such as housing.

The vision sets out a new agenda for adult social care based on a power shift from the state to the citizen, by committing to:

• Extend the rollout of personal budgets
• Increase preventative action in local communities,
• Keeping people independent and helping to build the Big Society
• Break down barriers between health and social care funding
• Encouraging care and support to be delivered in a partnership between individuals, communities, the voluntary sector, the NHS and councils – including wider support

Welcoming the plans, Cllr Kirsten Bayes, Deputy Leader of Reading Borough Council said:

“The Coalition Government has demonstrated its clear commitment to supporting carers and vulnerable people and that is very welcome.”

“These proposals will help us to support older and disabled people in Reading – and their carers, to live more independent lives.”

Cllr Daisy Benson, Lead Member for Community Care added:

“The vision is built on two key reforms that Liberal Democrats have been campaigning for many years.”

“The first is that people – not institutions- will have control over their care. By extending the roll out of personal budgets, first proposed by the Liberal Democrats in 2004, we will give individuals the freedom to decide what their money is spent on.

“The Coalition Government’s vision for social care will also deliver on our Party’s manifesto commitment to provide respite care to carers by making additional funding available  for this specific purpose.”

It is not well known that there are Direct Payments available for carers, to be spent in any way they wish, to alleviate the strains of caring. It could, for example, be a hundred pounds to organise a day out. So if you think you qualify, as a carer, to receive a Direct Payment grant, download the information pack, “Caring in Reading” which will tell you how to apply for a grant. Alternatively, you can contact Janette Searle or Iftkhar Ahmed at Reading Borough Council on 955 3600, or one of your local Councillors for more details.

Here are just a few figures on carers in Reading:

67% of carers are female, 50% are over 65, 73% provide more that 50 hours support a week.

341 payments have been issued or are pending since April this year, so if you think you might qualify for help – don’t delay.

Freedom Of Information requests sent to England’s 170 Acute Trusts found that, of the 118 which responded, 94 had no records or did not collect information on the effectiveness or results of the scheme. This included the Royal Berkshire Hospital.

The research also found that:

• Five Acute Trusts were unaware of the scheme or did not have it in place
• One said they were still awaiting guidance from the MOD
• One said they had knowledge of only 1 veteran having been considered for priority treatment
• Just three were able to provide figures – 2 of these had recorded a single patient each, while the third had treated 15 under the scheme in 10 years

Requests were also sent to 146 PCTs, of which 84 replied. Of these:

• 67 (including Berkshire West PCT) had no records or don’t collect the information.
• Three were able to provide figures – of these two had recorded one patient under the scheme, the other had had two requests.
• One said they were unaware of the scheme.

Commenting, Liberal Democrat prospective MP for Reading East, Cllr Gareth Epps, said:

“Veterans who have put their lives on the line for this country deserve better. If this priority treatment scheme is to be more than meaningless spin, Ministers need to get their act together. They need to ensure that this scheme starts to deliver.

“These findings provide no comfort that the Government veterans’ treament scheme is functioning. How can anyone have any confidence that Labour takes veterans’ treatment seriously if our local NHS Trusts have no idea of numbers treated or results?”

Editor’s Notes:

1. A spreadsheet is available on request giving a full breakdown of responses by Acute Trust and by Primary Care Trust.
2. The first Annual Report on the Governments’ Command Paper on services provided to the Forces, their families and veterans, published on 19 November, reported that:
   • The Royal British Legion considers that ‘little effective progress has been made in the past year’ on the veterans’ priority treatment scheme, with delivery remaining inadequate and awareness low.
   • In England and Wales, 33% of GPs questioned knew nothing at all about priority treatment for War Pensioners
   • Of those GPs who had heard of priority treatment, most (58%) heard about it from the media, 7% from the Service Personnel and Veterans Agency or elsewhere in the MOD, and 16% via the NHS
   • 10% of GPs who had heard of priority treatment had informed secondary care providers of a veteran’s entitlement to priority treatment in the previous 12 months See pp 23-4 of the 2009 report

3. Further information on the veterans’ priority treatment scheme can be found on the Government’s Veterans UK site
4. Berkshire West PCT’s response reads as follows:- ‘
   With regard to requests made to the PCT for funding of individual treatment that the requests we have recorded on our systems (which – to reiterate – would relate only to those treatments where the service is not routinely funded and therefore the case for exceptionality needs to be considered by the PCT) are not categorised to include war veteran status. It is therefore not possible to supply this information related to individual funding requests.’
5. The Royal Berkshire NHS Trust replied as follows:- ‘This information is not recorded on any Trust Information System.’