Age UK no help at all

My friend worked at a local Age Uk that had to close as it was £38,000 in debt. It provided great services but could not generate enough funding .

It is a long time since we used them and their service seemed to be helpful; they provided the home help service for MIL. However, I don't know how well they did their checks because there were a couple or more incidents that made us feel uneasy regarding the home help and her helpful OH.

I hope that you will be able to sort out the help this lady needs through the official channels.

However, if each area is separately run then some may be better than others.

We all understand funding issues with all these organisations but there is no excuse for incorrect information or unhelpful staff ever.

Anya, I accept that you and your friend did get treated badly. It is justI know from experience how services get pulled sometimes at short notice because continuing funding fails to materialise or is withdrawn.

However nothing justifies the couldn't care less attitude of the person you spoke to.

Excuse typos.

I understand that Monica" what I object to is that on the website *for that area all sorts were allegedly on offer, and in fact they were NOT.

If that were a business then they would be in breach of the Trades Description Act.

Don't tell me to 'give them a break' you didn't hear the 'couldn't care less' attitude of the person who answered the phone nor my elderly friend crying on the phone to me in desperation.

Age Concern is a federation of individual charities all separately registered and funded and what services they can offer depends on the availability of volunteers and funding from elsewhere, often on a project by project basis.

What services each separate Age Concern charity offers will vary although I think they need to agree to a core of services common to all.

I worked for Age Concern as a volunteer Home visitor for about 10 years but stopped because the funding for the project was withdrawn and as they were unable to get alternative funding the service had to be discontinued..

So give them a break, they may well really want to provide the services you wanted, but not have the funding or volunteers to provide it.

I complained to what I thought was their HQ and received this

"Thank you for your email. I am sorry to hear of your recent experience with Age UK Lancashire.

Age UK (name of region), like all local Age UKs, is an independent charity providing services across their borough. They have a management team and board of trustees who are ultimately responsible for the services they provide. While we work in partnership with them, Age UK itself is not in any sense a head office and we have no jurisdiction over the management of their operations. Any complaints you have about a product or service which you receive from a local Age UK, must initially be directed to the local Age UK concerned.

They then proceeded to give the the telephone number of the local area that I had already rung ? It would indeed seem to be a post code lottery DJ as you had a good experience. Kitty the website for this area promises all sorts but ....and my friend is one who at 93 doesn't inhabit hyperspace, not like us Silver Surfers (??)

Fat lot of use.

However persistence has paid off with SSS and my elderly friend will receive a visit from her SW tomorrow with an offer of day care. I rang her and she is delighted at the idea of getting out of the house.

I imagine AgeUk is having its funding cut and more calls on its resources just like everyone else. They are very good for advice - especially the website.

We had a good experience with AgeUK. We rang them up about DLA and had a representative come round to help fill in the forms. We got extra DLA because of that. Unfortunately my husnad died six months later, but that wasn't AgeUK's fault.

The AgeUK man was a retired solicitor and used to filling in these forms. This was six years ago, and obviously things have changed since then.

You are doing a good thing Anya hope the lady gets the help that she needs, thanks to you.

I was just wondering how you were getting on with helping that poor lady. Do keep us posted. Thank goodness you're there to help!

Talk about co-incidence just posted above when her Social Worker rang me! So have, at last, got somewhere.

As you were.