Carrick Over - 50s Forum Newsletter Issue 25 October 2012

SUPPORTING & CAMPAIGNING FOR THE OVER-50’S

The buffet lunch on 9th August at the Greenlawns Hotel was as always very tasty and fortified everyone for the marathon to come. We had Firemen from the Red Watch at Falmouth who gave us many tips for home safety, handed out egg timers as memory aids to prevent burning the cooking and forms to fill in for the future reference.

Following that we had the return visit of Julie Green from the Primary Care Trust to explain about Personalised Care Support. Briefly this is about integrated care planning by addressing an individual’s full range of needs including health, ethnic origins, cultural background and any other relevant circumstances, food preferences, particular interests, dislikes, the list is endless but it builds up a picture of you. Julie left plenty of care plan forms. If you would like one please let me know but in any event I will bring some to the next meeting.

Julie brought along a colleague, Johanna Ponsford, to talk about NHS 111. This was quite a technical presentation and unfortunately time ran out but in a nutshell it was to inform us that by March 2013 there will be a new telephone service being introduced to make it easier to access local health services. If it is necessary to contact the NHS for urgent care there will only be three numbers to know: 999 for life-threatening emergencies, 111 for advice and assessment and make sure you know your own doctor’s telephone number too. THIS DOES NOT GO INTO EFFECT UNTIL MARCH NEXT YEAR.

My apologies to those who found the afternoon too long! Rest assured there will only be one speaker next time. As the Carlton Hotel is undergoing refurbishments we may find a few changes – stimulating!

What a summer, terrible weather but what a feast of sport of all kinds.

The Olympics must have lifted the spirits for so many and as the Paralympic medals keep rolling in, we really do have something to celebrate.

See you at the Carlton Hotel.

Judith Whiteley
Chairman



CELEBRATING AGE & AMBITION

“If no one ever took risks, Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor”
Neil Simon.

The Celebrating Age and Ambition art and writing workshops are just
around the corner so please come and join the fun. Whether you are
creatively confident or have always wanted to have a go but never had
the chance, these workshops are specially designed to suit everyone who comes along. We need you! We have a gallery to fill and we need your ideas to fill it.

All the workshops are free and you can come to just one or all of them - the more, the merrier!

For further information please contact Caroline Schanche on 07773 669667
or caroline.schanche@virgin.net


WORKSHOP DATES
25TH SEPTEMBER
2 - 4pm The Draceana Centre, Falmouth
2ND OCTOBER
2.30 - 4.30pm Perran Bay Care Home, Perranporth
10TH OCTOBER
2 - 4pm Falmouth Town Gallery, Falmouth
16TH OCTOBER
2 - 4pm Truro Community Library, Truro


HEARING LOSS CORNWALL

Do you have a hearing loss? Do you have a family member or friend who is deaf or hard of hearing?

Hearing Loss Cornwall can offer information, advice, guidance and communication support to anyone affected by any degree of hearing loss, as well as providing support and advice to family and friends.

On October 3rd this year, we change our name from the Cornwall Deaf Association, to Hearing Loss Cornwall and launch our new website www.hearinglosscornwall.org
We would like to invite you to join us on Wednesday October 3rd to celebrate!

Everyone is welcome to come and meet the team, find out more about what we do and the support we offer. Light refreshments, tea and cake will be available to help the celebrations! Where? At our offices 3 Walsingham Place, Truro, TR1 2RP – just off Victoria Square. When? Feel free to drop in anytime from 12.30-4pm on Wednesday 3rd October.

This celebration coincides with the 81st anniversary of the charity's founding and the realisation that our inclusive purpose (which remains as clear as ever!) - to support deaf and hard of hearing people in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, while increasing awareness of their particular needs and difficulties amongst the community at large - was not fully reflected in our name. Many people thought we only worked with the Deaf Community, and while this is a large part of what we do, it is not the only thing we do!

We have a range of equipment for display and loan, and from the office we can provide NHS batteries for hearing aids. We can make referrals to Adult Social Care Rehabilitation Officers, to ensure anyone with a hearing loss is visited in their home and given expert advice about what equipment is available to help in every day life. We also work with a qualified technician who can quote for installation and hire of Hearing Loop Systems.

For friends and family, we can provide handouts, tips and training on how to improve communication skills. There are so many simple things that can make a huge difference.

Hearing Loss Cornwall also offers Deaf & Hard of Hearing Awareness Training to public, private and voluntary sector organisations to ensure they are fulfilling their statutory duties under the Equality Act 2010.

TELEPHONE: 01872 225 868
TEXTPHONE: 01872 263 664
EMAIL: info@hearinglosscornwall.org
WEBSITE: www.hearinglosscornwall.org

EARLY INTERVENTION SERVICE

Health and Social Care Early Intervention Service (EIS)

This project is a partnership between Cornwall Council’s Adult Care and Support, Peninsula Community Health (formerly Community Health Services) the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust and Cornwall Partnership Foundation Trust

This service goes live across the six former districts in September.

→ Focussing on sight and hearing loss
→ Early intervention and enablement

Both sight and hearing loss can be either insidious in their onset, or sudden and traumatic. The start point for the EIS is when the individual both feels and recognises there is a problem and feels able to take a positive approach in addressing this problem.

The “team” is currently setting up a deafness management programme for a group of people who are experiencing serious communication difficulty. As well as practical skills around lip reading and hearing aid management this group will learn how to control and develop confidence in, situations that they find difficult or threatening. Part of the package provided for this group will be an assessment of equipment needs and sign posting other services that might be available for them.

Enablement and rehabilitation for a visually impaired person takes a different slant though the core features of developing skills, knowledge and confidence remain. As well as daily living skills around the home, one of the challenges the team has is to help the individual regain access to the outside world through mobility training. This will involve relearning the geography of an area from a visually impaired perspective and acquiring skills such as using a long cane or referral to Guide Dogs for the Blind.

The team is Cornwall-wide. The specialist workers for hearing impairment are located in a multi-disciplinary setting in the Audiology Department at RCHT, Treliske but also can be found in local offices.

The specialist workers for visual impairment are based locally. Referrals are often made by professionals, or you can contact the Access Team on 0300 1234 131

For more information visit www.cornwall.gov.uk/earlyintervention

This information has come from the August 2012 issue 7 of the Health and Social Care Early Intervention Service newsletter.


SNIPPET

Naomi Campbell RGN BSc
Innovator and Hydration Lead, Cornwall Hydration Project

You may recall Naomi’s visit to us at the Greenlawns Hotel at the Christmas Lunch where she enchanted us all by opening with some very personal details (issue 21). She then went on to tell us about her vital project affecting so many people in hospitals and care homes, that of access to drink.

I suspect we were her guinea pigs for her forthcoming presentation at the House of Lords!

She has written to say that she is now in post as the first nurse in the UK to have a job focusing on Hydration. We wish her every success and she has even suggested we arrange another get-together.



LETTER TO THE EDITOR

For your information, I can confirm that Cornwall Council received the sum of £368,000 both this year and last year. Originally last year it was specifically for, although not ring-fenced, Local Community Transport Projects whereas this year the word local was removed and it was simply for Community Transport projects. I am not sure how significant this was, however I can confirm that as a Trustee of the CTA UK I was disappointed to hear from Graham Hick the Cabinet Member with a special responsibility for Transportation, Highways and Environment Operations (Delivery) that neither of the amounts of £368,000 are to be used for the purpose intended by the DfT and rather they have been absorbed into the Council’s Corporate budget.

In an area like Cornwall with huge isolation and accessibility problems this money could have been used to benefit many of the disadvantaged amongst our communities. In this context one cannot help but feel disappointed on behalf of those many volunteers out there delivering Community Transport and for those isolated in the Community who this money could have helped.

Brian Smith


JUST FOR FUN

New information on shampoos:

I have just discovered this important information below. Please share with all your friends. I don't know WHY I didn't figure this out sooner!!!!!

It's the shampoo I use in the shower! When I wash my hair, the shampoo runs down my whole body. Printed very clearly on the shampoo label is this warning, "FOR EXTRA VOLUME AND BODY." No WONDER I have been gaining weight!!!

Well, I have gotten rid of that shampoo and I am going to start using Dish Washing Liquid instead. It's label reads, "DISSOLVES FAT THAT IS OTHERWISE DIFFICULT TO REMOVE." Problem solved! If I don't answer the phone I'll be in the shower!

Idle thoughts…

“I planted some bird seed. A bird came up. Now I don't know what to feed it.”
“I had amnesia once - or twice...”
“All I ask is a chance to prove that money can’t make me happy!”


OUR RIGHTS, OUR VOICES

A NEW PROJECT PROMOTING THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF OLDER PEOPLE

“Our Rights, Our Voices” is a 3-year project run by Age UK and funded by Comic Relief. The project aims to empower older people to find out about human rights and how they can make a difference to people in later life by using a human rights based approach to influencing and campaigning.

There are 8 Forums in the UK involved in this project who are keen to make a difference in their local area by learning about human rights and developing this approach. Our Forum is one of these and now we need to recruit volunteers to form our team.

It is not necessary to be an expert on human rights but it is important to be enthusiastic and happy to work on a small team.

If this sounds like something with which you would like to be involved please contact Judith for further information.

NATIONAL PENSIONERS CONVENTION

National Pensioners Convention (NPC) has asked us to give them our support as they tussle with the government over very real issues affecting all of us.
In recent weeks various politicians, think tanks and media commentators have started suggesting that age-related benefits such as the BUS PASS and WINTER FUEL allowance should be means-tested. The NCP is due to release a report entitled “Sir Alan Sugar and the Missing Bus Pass” which challenges this view. This can be downloaded on www.ncpuk.org.

Winter is round the corner and energy bills will start to rise again and if we are going to avoid the scandal of excess winter death rates amongst pensioners, cutting the allowance is not an option, indeed it should be raised!

Remember it is not only winter fuel, but bus passes are under threat too.
So the NPC has asked that we be alerted to a national lobby of Parliament which has been organised for 31st October. It is vital that as many pensioners as possible go to lobby their MPs on the day.

Just a thought, Cornwall is a very long way away but we could combine it with a Christmas shopping spree!

Date: Wednesday 31 October
Time: 11.30am start with 1.00 pm rally
Venue: Committee Room 14, House of Commons
For more information telephone 0207 383 0388 or go to www.npcuk.org
Berndard,O’Neil
bernardt.oneil@mypostoffice.co.uk

QUIZ

1. Johnny's mother had three children. The first child was named April. The second child was named May. What was the third child's name?

2. There is a clerk at the butcher shop, he is five feet ten inches tall and he wears size 13 shoes. What does he weigh?

3. Before Mt. Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the world?

4. How much dirt is there in a hole that measures two feet by three feet by four feet?

5. What word in the English Language is always spelled incorrectly?

6. Billy was born on December 28th, yet his birthday is always in the summer. How is this possible?

7. In California, you cannot take a picture of a man with a wooden leg. Why not?

8. What was the US President's Name in 1975?

9. If you were running a race, and you passed the person in second place, what place would you be in now?

10. Which is correct to say, "The yolk of the egg are white" or "The yolk of the egg is white"?

11. If a farmer has 5 haystacks in one field and 4 haystacks in the other field, how many haystacks would he have if he combined them all in another field?

COMFY SHOES

Over the last 2 years, Comfyshoes2u has established a reputation for quality service and customer focus. Based in Falmouth, the business was set up by Rob and Judy Penfold providing a unique service by taking a selection of high quality, comfortable shoes direct to people in their home environment. Comfyshoes2u is an ideal service for those who find it hard to travel to town centres and don’t enjoy shopping by internet.
Call 01326 317921.

SNIPPET

Good news for a change “Nearly all the Council run car parks are now only charging £1.00 after 4.00pm” – this came into force on 1 April.

CAMPAIGN TO END LONELINESS

Fantastic news as the Campaign to End Loneliness learnt last month that loneliness and isolation in older age has been recognised as a serious public health issue and WILL now be included in the health and wellbeing strategy for Cornwall. The strategy is due to be published later this year.

Marianne would like to thank everyone who wrote letters to the Shadow Health and Wellbeing Board or responded to the consultation earlier this summer. As she says “A great effort and a great result!”

To celebrate this, and to showcase services available to help keep older people connected, the Campaign will be holding a fair for the over 60s at the Princess Pavilion in Falmouth on Monday 29th October.

There will be workshops, free refreshments and the SOUP ukulele band will be playing to name a few of the attractions. More details to follow when we have them. ALL ARE WELCOME.


Also during September the Campaign organisers will be releasing a short survey for people over 50 about loneliness and isolation in Cornwall. Anyone who responds will be entered into a prize draw for a Marks and Spencer voucher. If you’re able to help by filling in a questionnaire, please email or call Marianne.

EMAIL: Marianne@campaigntoendloneliness.org.uk
TELEPHONE: 0207 012 1411
WEBSITE & BLOG: www.campaigntoendloneliness.org.uk

SNIPPETS

JEREMY HUNT has just been given the job of Health Secretary, replacing Andrew Lansley as the government minister responsible for the NHS. WILL HE LISTEN?

There is an open letter being sent to him about his future with the NHS to which if you so wish you can add your name. https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/Hunt-letter

Mr Hunt is probably better-known for his support of Rupert Murdoch!

Thousands more households will be eligible for help under the Government’s Warm Front Scheme from 12th September when new regulations come into force.

International Day of Older People Monday 1st October

There will be a Senior Lifeskills Exhibition event held in Truro Methodist Church Rooms, Union Place from 10.00 am till 3.00 pm. Your interest and support will be more than welcomed. The Forum will have a small stand and if anyone feels they could come and help, let Judith know.

Move – The Exhibition

Many Members will recall Dr Noreen Orr who came to talk to us about her research into ageing, physical well-being and asked for willing volunteers. Several signed up to be interviewed for research purposes from which the chosen few went on further and were photographed in their chosen exercise. Photographic images are now on show – you may have seen them in Truro Library – prior to the exhibition moving to the Eden Project Café (which I believe is in the centre of St Austell not at the Eden Centre) in September. There is a very fine picture of Margaret dancing which should not be missed!

Basic British Sign Language sessions will be starting in September

Date: Tuesday 18th September
Time: 10.00 till 11.30
Venue: Hearing Loss Cornwall offices, 3 Walsingham Place, Truro
Enquiries: Telephone 01872 225868

Sensors could help elderly remain at home
Telegraph Wednesday 5th September

I expect many of you saw the article in the Telegraph about elderly living independently for longer by fitting sensors and cameras which monitor their behaviour for signs of illness or accidents. Invisible neighbours? The scientists claim that the uses of thermometers will detect if windows or doors have been left open, magnetic sensors will track a person’s movement and microphones and webcams to monitor everyday behaviour. Woops! They do promise that if there is no unusual activity detected then the recordings will be erased to protect privacy. What they haven’t come up with is a gadget to relieve loneliness and have the much needed chat. Has anyone any thoughts on the matter?


Quiz Answers

1. Johnny of course
2. Meat.
3. Mt. Everest; it just wasn't discovered yet.
4. There is no dirt in a hole.
5. Incorrectly
6. Billy lives in the Southern Hemisphere
7. You can't take pictures with a wooden leg.
8. Same as it is now - Barack Obama [Oh, come on ....]
9. You would be in second.. Well, you passed the person in second place, not first.
10. Neither, the yolk of the egg is yellow.
11. One. If he combines all of his haystacks, they all become one big stack.


UPCOMING MEETINGS

BI-MONTHLY FORUM MEETINGS
The bi-monthly meetings all take place on a THURSDAY from 12.00 noon until 3.00pm.

NEXT MEETING WILL BE:
4TH OCTOBER - Carlton Hotel, Truro

GUEST SPEAKERS:
Anthony Ball who is the Tackling Inequalities Co-ordinator and will be speaking on winter wellbeing 2012-2013.

Transport can be arranged for those who really need it, but you will be asked to make a nominal contribution of £4.00 for your door to door service.

Please let Judith know if you are coming and require lunch.

DATES FOR 2012
Forum meetings:
4TH OCTOBER Carlton Hotel, Truro
4TH DECEMBER Greenlawns Hotel, Falmouth

PREVIOUS NEWSLETTERS:
cornwall.gov.uk/Default.aspx?page=27127

NEW FORUM MEMBERS ARE ALWAYS WELCOME

CONTACT THE FORUM

JUDITH WHITELEY (CHAIRMAN)

EMAIL: jwhiteley@cornwall.gov.uk
TELEPHONE: 01326 374279
WRITE TO:
Carrick Over-50’s Forum
17 Church Road,
Mylor Bridge
TR11 5NL

DAVID WHEELER (TREASURER)

TELEPHONE: 01326 315305

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