Fellow of the Centre Chris Moon-Willems has published an important new book on care and support for older people.
Author: Chris Moon-Willems
This practical book to help navigate Britain’s labyrinthine care system has been written by Chris Moon-Willems, an expert in elderly care, to support the 6.5 million people currently caring for loved ones in the UK.*
Relative Matters provides an easy to digest guide to health and care and options and gives valuable advice to the 800,000 people** in the UK who receive no support. Topics include deciding between different care at home options and different residential homes as well as stretching finances through creative care planning.
Chris was at the forefront of social and health care transformation as her parents were two of the first people in the UK to have a personal budget using a direct payment from Social Services. Their story has inspired other NHS and social service departments to provide personal budgets using direct payments for older people. This enables elderly people to buy individually tailored services for themselves, rather than social workers providing off the shelf services.
Chris believes that as a nation, we should be embarrassed by the way older people are looked after:
I believe this is only partly due to failure of the government to adequately fund basic standards of care for older people. It is also about the way older people are treated generally and the derogatory and discriminatory labels they are given. There have been many reports in the media highlighting the lack of dignity and respect older people are being exposed to. There needs to be the same government attention given to eradicating old age discrimination that there has been on racial and gender discrimination and people who care for vulnerable older people need to be trained better and paid more.
The book shares Chris’s emotional and personal journey with her own parents and tells of her disenchantment with the care system towards the end of her father’s life:
I had the fortune of knowing exactly what support is available but I still faced challenges and disappointment. I hope my book will offer support and guidance at this intensely stressful time for families.
Relative Matters is available to buy from Amazon priced £18.95.
Sources:
* 6.5 million people caring for loved ones
** 800,000 out of two million people who receive no formal support
The publisher is Bookshaker.
Relative Matters © Chris Moon-Willems 2012.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this paper may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher except for the quotation of brief passages in reviews.
