Minutes of the AGM and Forum Meeting Held on Tuesday May 27th 2008

Present: 61+ members

1.0 MM welcomed members to the AGM and in particular those attending for the first time.

1.2 MM asked all to support today’s raffle to help boost Forum funds.

1.3 MM Future meeting topics were described.

1.4 MM informed members of the coffee and poetry mornings and the SSO concert.

2.0 Social activities report:

2.1 RB told members of all the planned and proposed trips.IR asked for a show of hands in support of a trip to the new Wembley Stadium. Roddy told members to put the Christmas social date of Wednesday December 10^th in their diaries.

3.0 Development Officer report:

3.1 OG said that there are 8 places left on the Faversham trip. Loose Women trip is full for August 4^th. There are now two places sharing a twin room available for Luxembourg, as people had to cancel.

3.2 OG asked for volunteers to register participants at the Falls Day on June 23^rd.

4.0 MM introduced the topic of the day as one which is confusing for many people and care pricing varies considerably for one area to another. The speakers are Lizzie McLennan from Help the Aged and Steve Tall, Head of Older People’s Services here in Enfield.

MM said that there is a lot of confusion about what is available and who pays the bills. Means testing and charges vary a lot from place to place. The present system was described as unfair and inadequate. The Forum was encouraged to set up a subcommittee to monitor what is taking place in Enfield.

LMc began; Liz is a policy adviser at Help the Aged and supports a team. They do lots of political lobbying to make changes happen. The media gives more coverage nowadays to social care and also politicians are waking up to the fact that they need to do something.

The issues are around-Quality of care/Quantity and access to car/Funding

Some people are lucky but most don’t have an adequate care service. It is difficult to make the best choice if you don’t know all of the services available to you. On websites there is too much information and there needs to be a one stop shop to guide you. Tax may have to be increased to cope with the baby boom generation. The government knows that there is a social care problem and wants a consultation as to how it should be financed. She talked about “personalisation” and client choice. She spoke of the Right Care-Right Deal campaign, which is feeding into the green paper to promote change.

Steve Tall; spoke about the local situation as he is head of older people’s, services in the borough. There are 38,000 over 65s in the borough and 80,000 over 50s.Services in Enfield are provided to 5,000 people. There are 537 living in residential care/203 in nursing care/1155 who are supported at home with personal care. There is a 30% drop in those going into residential care due to more care at home. 300 receive home meals either hot or frozen. 2550 have adapted equipment or an adapted home.1100 people receive social work service for their information. This means that 12.5% of over 65s are in receipt of care-mostly female. He showed us the booklet Older Peoples Community Social Work Team. They have a safeguarding adults policy. Needs are banded when an assessment takes place.

£22,250 of savings means you must pay in full for a care service. £13,500-£22,250 means you will make some contribution. Under £13,500-depending on your income, you may have to make a contribution. About half the people in Enfield do not make a contribution to their care service. Your home is not taken into consideration but if you need residential care then it is unless there are other relatives living there. NHS continuing care applies if your needs are medical/health related and the NHS will pay for that.

There were a lively and interesting series of comments and questions and these were answered well by the speakers.

The raffle was drawn and the meeting finished at 1pm

Chair: Monty Meth Vice Chairs: Roy Barrows and Irene Richards Treasurer: Peter Shukla Secretary: Tony Watts Development Officer: Olivia Goodfellow Membership Secretary: Joyce Pullen