Independent Age Blog

Have this week's events brought good news or bad for older people?

By Rebecca Law, Media and PR Officer

This was a very good week for older rappers, on both sides of the Atlantic. The killer dance moves of Josephine Lamberti - or J-Dimps - from New York, have made this 80-year-old grandmother an internet sensation. The feisty, sweatband-attired grandma has already notched up an impressive 80,500 Twitter followers, including the likes of Justin Bieber, Jennifer Lopez and Jennifer Love Hewitt. J-Dimps, who breathes new life - and a dash of swagger - into doing her domestic chores, describes herself as a 'drug dealer' prescribing 'a dose of Dimps' for everyone. Dimps has achieved her feat despite suffering sciatica and relying on a walking stick. 'It's cured the boredom,' she explains. 'It breaks it up for me. If people can laugh over it, then I'm happy.' 

Back home, pensioner coterie, the Zimmers, a group of rappers between the ages of 66 and 88 made waves this week, making it through to the live semi-finals of Britain's Got Talent. Dressed in a rainbow palette of sportswear and more bling than you could ram into a treasure chest of, well, bling, the group shook their booty through their version of LMFAO's  I'm Sexy and I Know It. They may not have made it through to this weekend's final but they nevertheless succeeded in putting a smile on the face of hard-won Simon Cowell, who commended them for lifting the mood of the nation.

It was however, not such a good week for older rappers in the social care system, nor indeed for anyone in the social care system, which had a bad week. On Tuesday the Centre for Social Justice published a misguided report urging that social care reform should focus on only the poorest pensioners and any funding reform should only be phased in.

While the CSJ is right that the poorest people are struggling with our current social care funding system, it is also true that those people with assets of over £23,250 who become responsible for the full cost of their care are also treated appallingly by the current system. Not only are they cut off from advice and support, they are also at risk of losing nearly everything they have built up in their lifetime. It would be wrong to delay the wider reforms proposed by the Dilnot Commission.  

The great virtue of the Dilnot proposal is that it provides a comprehensive basis for reform of social care, to which other measures can be added. It should be the bedrock of reform, not an optional extra.

Still, we hoped for a little reassurance in this week's anticipated Queen's speech, which, ultimately, only exacerbated our sense of disappointment. Yes, the speech outlined promises to put people in control of their care and to provide greater information and advice to help people navigate the system, but sadly, there was not even so much as whiff of the most critical issue: funding.

All the parties agree on the urgent need for reform of social care funding and there is the basis of a ready-made a solution available in the Dilnot recommendations. The only glimmer of hope is that the draft bill could yet be used as a vehicle for funding reform, if all-party agreement can be reached and the modest costs of reform found. The cross-party talks currently underway on social care therefore take on even greater urgency. Failure to reach agreement and to include funding reform in the bill would be a failure not just of those in need of care but of our entire political process.

By Simon Bottery, Director of Policy and Communications  

The Financial Times ran a disturbingly authoritative piece this week saying that there would be no promise of a bill on social care funding in the next session of Parliament. While the Queen's Speech would reaffirm commitment to reforming social care, this would mean no possibility of legislation for at least 18 months. That's an age in politics, as Harold Wilson might have said, and even longer for a coalition government that has just had a drubbing in the local elections.

The tensions in the coalition were also evident in a second story due to the Lib Dems' insistence on reform of the House of Lords, which was blocking up the House of Commons agenda.While that story looks remarkably like the work of anti-reform Conservatives ('just look at all this lovely legislation you could get through if only you'd drop your daft insistence on bashing the Lords') it does suggest a growing sense that social care reform is still some way off.

The lack of any report on the progress of cross-party talks compounds this and is consistent with the understanding that the next Comprehensive Spending Review will start later this year and conclude in autumn next year. This would be the logical vehicle with which to address the critical issue of how any reform of social care is actually funded, on which the coalition had only ever promised an 'update' in its coming White Paper. So the White Paper in June, probably, followed by a year of continued wranglings about cost, against a background of potentially £10bn worth of cuts in the welfare budget (which the Chancellor flagged in his budget). Not a welcoming prospect.

But there are glimmers of light in the gloom. The most important is that despite all the talk of delay and funding, there has been little attempt to split the near-consensus of support for a Dilnot-style capped cost model of funding. There is no sign, as yet, that we are to return to the more fundamental debate of how social care should be reformed, rather than the - admittedly intertwined - one about how it should be funded. 

Dilnot-o-meter verdict: Too close to call

Have this week's events brought good news or bad for older people?

By Rebecca Law, Media and PR Officer

Mobility scooters have done something of a U-turn this week. It was just last Friday that they (or, to be more precise, their drivers) bagged a slot in this very blog as our bad week news item. Well, to paraphrase Dinah Washington, what a difference seven days makes, for this was a good week for the vehicles.

It seems they are rising considerably in popularity. In this Guardian article, Amelia Gentleman reports they are becoming increasingly popular and manufacturers have responded by promoting them as a "fashionable lifestyle accessory." There were plenty of gleaming examples on display at this week's annual mobility scooter show at Birmingham's NEC, including four-wheeled Vespas and the "Harley" of mobility scooters.

"People take pride in these products," said a manufacturer. "They don't want to look as if they're driving around in a breadbin." We do have to wonder however, whether their miraculous makeover hasn't backfired a little. It seems the stigma around them has eroded so much that there is increasing evidence that able-bodied people are buying them too. Although it's technically illegal for someone to use a mobility scooter unless they "suffer from some physical defect or a physical disability," it seems, lured in by the fact that they require no tax, no licence or no insurance, people are willing to take their chances, seeing them as a cheap alternative to a car.

"Go to a pub," said another spokesman at the show, "you'll see them parked outside".

But while mobility scooters may have taken two revs forward, it was a definitely one step back for ageism, which had a bad week. We might be forgiven for thinking that we were actually getting somewhere, largely thanks to the efforts of Miriam O'Reilly and her landmark ageism case against the BBC. Even Director General of the BBC, Mark Thompson, had come out and admitted that the BBC got it wrong when it came to older broadcasters.

But of all people, the leader of our country, David Cameron, with one sentence, put us back where we started. During a rather heated session at the House of Commons, Cameron was defending his Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt's relationship with Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation.

Responding to 80-year-old Labour MP, Dennis Skinner's, suggestion that Cameron was, through his defence, simply shielding himself from bullets, the Prime Minister retorted: "Well, the honourable gentleman has the right at any time to take his pension and I advise him to do so."

This is not the first time Cameron has made a jibe about Mr Skinner's age. In January, he called him a "dinosaur" when responding to a question about the appointment of the former News of the World editor, Andy Coulson, as his Downing Street spokesperson.

Was this just banter? Yes, probably. But if Skinner's point of difference were his sex, race or religion, Cameron just wouldn't have dared go there. Why is it that age is still an acceptable "-ism?" If we want to see a real cultural shift around this issue, then surely, the leaders of our country have a duty to lead by example.

By Nathan Cox

I'm going to get straight to business. When I wrote an update before the marathon, I mused on whether the training I had done would be enough to see me through. Well, I'm very pleased to say that after four carb gels, numerous bottles of water and a few high-fives with people watching on the way round, it was! I completed the 26.2 miles in 3:55:16.

All in all, it was a fantastic experience. The weather gods were kind and whilst it was a slightly warmer day than I would have liked (I even caught the sun on my shoulders with the obligatory vest tan lines!), it was a pleasure to be running through the streets of London. The good weather meant for a huge crowd watching and cheering us all on, and the support really made a difference in the last few miles.

The best bit? Hard to call between running over Tower Bridge versus the river stretch just before Parliament Square. I have no issues deciding on the worst bit however. It has to be on Birdcage walk when I saw the sign that meant I only had 600m to go. By this point my legs were raging and as I tried to find a little extra for a strong-looking finish, I realised that I had nothing extra to give. That 600m felt like it went on for miles!

Despite the pain at the end and the unbelievably stiff feeling legs for a few days after, it was definitely worth it! Raising money for Independent Age has been a pleasure and I'm very grateful to Harriet and Amy from the charity for the support they have given me. I have no doubt that the money I have raised will be put to good use helping older people who really need it.

If you would like to sponsor Nathan, visit his Just Giving page.

Have this week's events brought good news or bad for older people?

By Rebecca Law, Media and PR Officer

There have been so many stories about older drivers this week that I feel the media super highway may soon reach gridlock. We commented just last week on how 40% of news reports about road accidents involved older drivers, despite statistics to show that they are one of the safest groups of drivers. One has to wonder why they are singled out for vilification, so we're really pleased to start with a positive story which ran in the Daily Mail this week. This was a good week for 74-year-old Valerie Christie from Carlisle who finally passed her driving test, 58 years after her first lesson.

It was the pensioner's third test, which she was inspired to take to help her disabled friend, Thomas, get to hospital appointments. Valerie said that despite feeling nervous, "I drove really well with only four minor faults."

"It shows you're never too old to learn a new skill," she added. Valerie is obviously feeling confident about hitting the road, but for those who feel less so, there was more good news with the announcement that Newcastle University is developing a SatNav, which can steer drivers away from busy roads and right turns. 

Older people naturally face issues with their health, such as slowing reactions or declining eyesight, so the development of something like this could help keep them on the road, when they might otherwise give up. We mustn't however allow this to let us fall into the trap of believing that older people are unsafe drivers. Unlike some younger drivers, who greatly overestimate their own abilities, evidence suggests that older drivers know their limitations and restrict their driving or change their habits. But a tool like this might just help rebuild confidence and allow older people to stay independent for longer.

It was however a bad week for mobility scooter users, who have found themselves accused of "reckless" driving. Some areas of the UK claim to have received so many complaints that a number of "road safety" courses have sprung up across the country. One of these is the Safe Scoot course, in Dorset, which offers people the chance to take part in obstacle courses, and weave in and out of traffic cones.

Users of the machines (which can reach either 4mph or 8mph), do not need a licence to drive them. As Mike Ruddick, organiser of Safe Scoot, explained "you are breaking the law if you are driving an 8mph scooter at that speed on the pavement and it can be dangerous. The majority of scooter drivers are reckless because they don't know there are laws in place." He did then however conclude that "there are hundreds of thousands of scooter owners who are absolutely perfect."