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What’s the problem with personalisation and mental health?
If we reflect on the main challenges that less than ten years ago prompted personalisation as a policy concept, they were about: people needing more control over their lives and services,...
Challenging the views that Rosa Monkton shared on TV
I cannot sleep without challenging the views that Rosa Monkton shared on TV http://www.itv.com/lorraine/hottopics/rosa-monckton-downs-syndrome/
Dignity, Institutionalisation and the Francis Report
Both the Francis report on the neglect, abuse and deaths of predominantly older people in Mid-Staffordshire hospital and this week’s CQC report on wider hospital failure telling a sorry tale.
The Importance of Redundancy (a.k.a. Time to Think)
12th March 2013
Avid readers of this blog (and I know you’re out there) will have noticed a recent irregularity in its appearance. The reason is that I’ve been suffering from a lack of...
Social care ‘reform’: funding more of the same?
Caroline Bernard 11 February 2013
The news feeds and social media have been alive today with the announcement on social care funding that was trailed over the weekend. The coalition government...
The Burden of Ageing - Not
The area of government policy that has continually depressed me the most (and I’m talking successive government’s here) is that around older people and ageing. What we at NDTi call the ‘demographic...
Getting human and civil rights back on the agenda
Here’s an optimistic wish for the new year – that human and civil rights returns to being a substantive policy and delivery priority in the health, social care and education sectors. ...
Winterbourne View – Reasons for Optimism?
An interesting thing has happened over the last few weeks. A government Minister listened to what knowledgeable people in the field were saying, took note, changed plans and instigated...
Austerity with Integrity
About eighteen months ago, the NDTi (or to be more precise one of our Associates, Simon Whitehead), coined the phrase ‘austerity with integrity’ in a discussion about how we behave in the current...
The DH’s Interim Winterbourne View Report
For the first few minutes of reading the DH’s interim Winterbourne View report, I was almost excited. I was reading clear, robust statements about the inappropriateness of many assessment and...
Five Things to Learn from Panorama’s Dementia Exposé
OK, this is a longer blog than usual, but Monday night’s Panorama programme about an elderly lady with dementia being abused and neglected in a care home made me angry – and when I’m angry I get...
A Personal Tribute to Jim Mansell
Professor Jim Mansell, architect of significant elements of learning disability policy in England, founder of the Tizard Centre at Kent University and champion of individualised, evidence based...
Remploy, Politicians and Images of Pity
The proposal to remove the Government subsidy from Remploy’s sheltered factories has once again hit the news headlines. The decision, which will probably result in the closure of the Remploy...
Why You Cannot Put Doctors in Charge of Life
Something different has happened recently in the debate on health and social care integration – something that makes the Government’s wider NHS reforms even less logical and coherent than many have...
Maslow and the Health Select Committee
The Health Select Committee has created headlines today by pronouncing that the energy, attention and demands of the Health Bill (and the associated changes that are already being implemented prior...
When Tendering Just Doesn’t Work
It’s amazing that when there is a perceived wisdom about how something is done, then no matter how obvious the evidence is that there is a problem – we can enter collective denial. I am...
