Care of the elderly

August is a good time to release bad news - either people aren't paying attention or with rioting and financial melt down no one is paying any attention.  Anyway Central Bedfordshire Council has announced  plans to charge for vital Telecare services, £4 a week or over £200 a year.  Telecare installs state of the art devices which can detect falls, movement or drops in the temperature and are more effective than the standard alarm pendant. 




The council says it wants to ask people their opinion about this. I wonder what people will say? A 12-week consultation period finishes on  Friday 4th November 2011. You can take part in the consultation by filling in the form online or down loading it from www.centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/consultations 

Central Bedfordshire Buses

In addition to threatening Sunday buses (are they already gone?) in Cranfield we now learn that the concessionary bus pass scheme will no longer apply before 9.30 am (Times and Citizen 16 Dec) . This is another blow to the elderly population in Cranfield - mobile library going - and elsewhere as they see their quality of life eroded to pay the dane geld (sorry bankers' bonuses and demands of the bond market) while others (Philip Green and Vodaphone) squirrel away millions from HMIC.

Clearly the elderly can't be allowed out before 9.30 am.

I attended the users consultation referred to in the Times and Citizen article. The facilitators didn't let up until they had got the group to 'vote' on whether buses should be for either economic activity, access, or leisure etc. Thus giving the council justification for saying certain types of transport were a lower priority.

And did they ask if we thought restricting passes was a good idea or did we think ending Sunday buses was a great idea? Of course they didn't.