Issue 26 - November 2017
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1 Nottingham City Signposting Service is a First Contact Service that makes a difference to people’s lives! Issue 26 - November 2017 Welcome back to the latest edition of the Nottingham City P l e as e Signposting newsletter nev I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself as the new e r Signposting Coordinator, to anyone who didn‟t meet me at October‟s P1 Introductions und P2-3 Study of e r etraining but for those who have not, I would like to say a Big Hello! Disaster s t iSome background information, I have been working at Metropolitan Sixty P4 Age UK Winter mat Plus Team for four years both as a Care and Support Worker as a Senior Wrapped Up e Support Worker so I am very familiar for most of your services as I have P5 City Care Falls and Bone t h e Health role used them past whilst supporting my customers. For those I am that P6 Influenza Advice unfamiliar with I will be contacting you in the near future to meet and w e P7-8 Nottingham discuss your services further. p l a Healthy Housing y October‟s Training went really well, we had some excellent feedback with Service a smany of the attendees enjoying the interactive side of the training which P9 Community indi enabled them to find out more about the partners service. I have also had Christmas v i d interest from two other services who want to join the checklist; a P10-12 Meals at ual Home s , befriending service for those who have served in the armed forces and P13 Signposting w h Everyone Health. I will be meeting them both to find out more. News e n visit Before Clare‟s departure, she worked hard securing meetings to present P14 Independent i n gthe Signposting Service to Local GP Practices. I have presented at two Age peo practices Wollaton Park Medical Centre and Leen View Surgery at P15 Turning Point p l eBulwell Riverside. We had a good response about the service and why P16 Contact the Elderly i n the service would be beneficial to them; Leen View Surgery have P17 Poppy Calls thei P18 Trading Standards r requested more referral forms. The Signposting Team and Support P19-20 Sixty Plus h o Workers from the Sixty Plus Team have also been present at Flu Clinics P21-22 Telecare & Cadent m e alongside the Nottingham Healthy Housing Service. s . P23 Lifestyle Centre W eNow that the winter months are now upon us, I would like to urge you to P24 My Sight hav think about our vulnerable customers who maybe struggling with keeping P25-26 Home Library e their homes warm; those struggling to manage their health and those who Service t h ewill be lonely and isolated, struggling to get out their homes. The P27-29 What’s going on opp ortu Guardian article published January 2016, “Why is One Older Person nity dying every seven minutes?” begs to question whether it has to do with t o the cold weather or Fuel Poverty amongst older people today? We need a s s to keep talking with our customers about the energy efficiency of their e s s homes; whether they are receiving the relevant benefits? or Cold and eva Weather Payments/ benefits? This will help keep our customers healthy, luat safe and independent. e I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and all the best for 2018! h o w Thank you for the work you put into the Signposting Service and your peo continuous commitment. p l e Edited by Natanya Myers Signposting Coordinator Nottingham City Signposting Service Page 1 1 2 “Why is One Older Person dying every seven minutes?” Back in 2011, I was a final year Sociology student at Nottingham Trent University and I studied a module called Disaster and the Social World. I wrote an answer to an assignment: ‘Discuss the ways in which the study of disaster furthers our understanding of social relations’. You are probably asking why is this relevant and why am I covering this? Consider this: Age UK previously ran an campaign on Spread the Warmth and alongside the 2016 news heading from the Guardian, we are still seeing each winter one older person die needlessly every seven minutes. I would ask you, would you call this a disaster? The study of disaster concentrates on how a hazard and a person’s vulnerability then creates a sociological constructed term of disaster. This term can be used in many contexts, according to an individual in that place and time, a disaster could be a twelve hour dinner ruined due to not turning the oven down or an landslide in poor country killing hundreds of people and destroying the entire infrastructure; it’s just that’s persons perspective. Vulnerability comes into play as it is that individual’s status in society, it’s their social-economic background that determines how they will be affected by a hazard, how they will recover and what state will it leave their lives in. A hazard is not just a natural event but can form part of technological disaster and armed conflicts. The Vulnerability Thesis is an important component as the characteristics of a person or group in terms of their capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the impact of a natural hazard. It looks into factors that determine what level an event caused by nature of society may put a person’s life or livelihood at risk and how prone they are to the aftermath of a hazard. Lack of information, cultural knowledge, social networks, legal rights as well as tools, land, or other physical resources also has an impact on how a person deals with a hazard once it has occurred. The PAR Model (Pressure and Release Model) looks at the progress of vulnerability: Root Causes, Dynamic Pressures and Unsafe Conditions on one side and the hazard on the other forcing pressure that then creates the disaster in the middle. When I was researching a disaster, I didn’t want to go for the obvious. Britain has always suffered from disasters but the occurrence would be rare or occur without any realisation. When it comes to weather, Britain suffers from tornados, earthquakes, floods and tsunamis. Armed with this knowledge, it is noticed that institutions struggle to cope and life in Britain comes to a standstill. Snowfall in December 2009 was so severe that 8,089 people aged 65 and over died in the last week of December with the final total in January 2010 calculating to 11,013. Based on this information the socio-economical group I focused on was older people. Why did I feel this was a disaster? Because when looking at the PAR model you would think all the points would be met and the risk would be low. However if you broke that down you could answer why such a high number of older persons die every winter. 2 2 So looking at the root causes the first issue was the crisis over salt reserves which stopped councils from gritting the roads and pavements to prevent accidents. Over the years many mistakes have been repeated but the government has always reassured the country that they had it under control and yet we still saw many councils conserving grit supplies. Another root cause is the rise in energy bills pushing older people into fuel poverty. Older people suffer the dynamic processes such as fuel poverty but many are living in houses that don’t meet the decent home standard. If we translate these social issues and the governments cut backs on grit to unsafe conditions- 23,100 older people died in winter 2009 because they lacked awareness of winter struggles. Social services and the NHS could not react fast enough to place the most frail into care homes. As older people find themselves in fuel poverty they spend winter bitterly cold and at risk of health problems when they are already frail. With the lack of gritting many older people did not receive their delivery of meals and found themselves struggling to survive as no one visited them, many being discovered dead in their homes. Fast Forward to the end 2015: it was recorded there was an estimated 43,900 excess winter deaths Female deaths leapt nearly 150% in a single year from 10,250 to 25,500 between 2013/2014 to 2014/2015 Poverty rates for women remain higher compared to men, with female pensioners remains in poverty 5%- 8% higher than their male counterparts Poverty overall is the highest for those over the age of 75 years old Cold –related illness and hospital admissions will cost the NHS more than 22bn over the next 15 years This should not be happening in the 21st century, this should not be happening in a country that is rich in intelligence, a country that has one of the biggest economies and has the resources to prevent this. Older people should not be dying through struggling to keep their homes warm. Other Factors: Physical & Mental Health Loneliness Access to Hospitals and Social Care Poverty Under Insulated Homes So I will leave you with food for thought, a disaster is not just a freak weather accident or an act of terrorism but an event that causes devastation to a person’s life. Most disasters can be better prepared for, by equipping people with the knowledge and resources they need to minimize the effects one’s life.