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A stroke volunteer’s story
Like many charities, AAA member Bristol After Stroke relies heavily upon volunteers to support their activities. Unlike many charities though, most of their volunteers have personal experience of the condition they are supporting…
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Exclusive: Could this AI device keep older people independent – and connected – in their own homes?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is variously portrayed as a potential boon to mankind… or a destructive force. A small collaborative group, including AAA members Easiphones and AAA chair, Tony Watts OBE, are looking to harness it as a force for good for older people living alone… and avoid the perils of technology edging out the human…
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How can we maximise the “wellbeing potential” of retirement living?
Tony Watts OBE recently gave a presentation at LaingBuisson’s Social Care Summit on why later life housing developers need to “futureproof” their schemes by “maximising their wellbeing potential”. Here is an adapted version of that presentation. A common theme in any discussion on retirement housing in the UK is why retirement developments here have not…
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Are you owed some of “Britain’s missing billions”?
Did you know that an estimated £89 billion is currently going unclaimed in some 28 million forgotten bank and savings accounts, premium bonds, pensions, insurance policies and Child Trust Funds? But how do you go about checking one of them is yours or a relative’s?
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Do we need Commissioners for Older People and Ageing Well in England and Scotland?
Do politicians seriously believe that promising to keep the triple lock pension will address the concerns of older adults about access to and the need for social care, health, housing and public transport? By Mervyn Eastman and Shirley Ayres
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Older people take their demand for a Commissioner to Downing Street
Campaigners have taken their calls for the creation of a Commissioner for Older People and Ageing in England to the heart of Westminster.
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We are all paying the price for the nation’s poor and dangerous housing
Amongst all of the predictable hoo-ha around the PM’s call to end the culture of “sick note” Britain, it might well be forgotten that the poor state of our homes, plus crowded living conditions, is playing a key role in the rising tide of poor health in this country as well as startling levels of…
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Is your workplace carer-friendly?
If not, it will almost certainly hurt your business, argues Deborah Stone of Mature Thinking. That’s because caring is increasingly becoming a part of people’s lives as our population continues to age and fewer and fewer qualify for support – and the nation’s growing army of informal carers are struggling to combine work and care.
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WASPI: justice will have to wait… again
Grenfell, Windrush, subpostmasters, the blood transfusion scandal, Dilnot… the latest delay in implementing the Ombudsman’s report on WASPI women is just one more examplar, writes Tony Watts OBE, of the tactics routinely used by Government to put off rectifying historic wrongs or fulfilling promises made – many involving older people who may never live to…
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Pensions Freedom 10 years on: who have been the winners… and losers?
This March marked the tenth anniversary of the announcement of “Pension Freedom and Choice” reforms which, along with Auto-Enrolment, represented the two major shifts in pension policy enacted under George Osborne. What have been the long-term impacts for savers? asks Tony Watts OBE.