Despair

Age Concern is a country wide charity, their money, their staff, their offices

So while you are fighting for the local Age Concern, there is probably money in your area, but it is going elsewhere. Maybe all to the same, different place. Not a good idea in my opinion.

I never know if that is right about The Good Samaritan. The person he helped was the person he came across, much like the people in your town if you ask me. If everyone helped the people not nearest to them, no one is going to come across the people literally on their doorstep.

There are people in this area who don't want to give up their spare time Obieon, not neglect just selfishness , tv is more entertaining than reading to an elderly person, and sorry but I have no idea what bible you read, in mine 'love thy neighbour' leads to the parable of The Good Samaritan.my neighbours are the people living in my close, the people in the next, town, the people in Syria , a child in Syria is equal to a child in the UK, they may have many different needs but there are two needs they share - love and protection.

I think we all know that the money that goes abroad often does not reach the people it should reach, by a long way. The same cannot generally be said of money that goes to charities that are very local.

But I wouldnt dream of saying that that the boy in Syria is more or less worthy than a young person in this country with mental health issues personally.

Well actually I might, thinking more about it, because love thy neighbour I tend personally, rightly or wrongly to think of a neighbour or someone nearby. That is what it was in the Bible. I think. A bit late at night to be sure of what I post here. I will think more about it in the morning.

I sometimes think, that who is going to give money to someone in the next town say for instance if I didn't?. Whereas the whole world may pay money to Syria or whereever, if you see what I mean.

So there may be people in Anniebach's area, who are , and I hesitate to say neglecting the people in their very local area

Well, go volenteer in Syria Jingle

My post was to obieone btw)

Volenteers do not get paid, it is these people who keep many small charities working

Yeah. Because local issues and causes are so much more worthwhile aren't hey?

Never mind the small boy being dug out of the remains of his house after the barrel bomb strike.

I think charity giving will change.
Plenty of people I know are heartily fed up of the national charities which pay high salaries from the top down, and have cut back thier charity giving considerably. They are trying to find which charities they can give to instead, that are more local, and dont pay ridiculous amounts for salaries, offices, have to set up standing orders etc etc.

I also think that because of Brexit, people are and going to start to think in terms of Britain first, again which will benefit local issues and causes.

Tory austerity is really beginning to bite now. Local authorities supported a lot of services that were run by charities. Six years ago the Tories were talking about The Big Society and how the new model of delivering all kinds of services would be via charities. The trouble is that the "charities" that do this kind of work are all pretty reliant on public money. There is no big pot of money available from private companies or wealthy philanthropists. We're talking about services like women's refuges and many others services to vulnerable people. The Tories like the charitable model because people working in them get paid a LOT less i than if they were employed by local authorities or other public sector.
Now the amount of money has dwindled due to Tory austerity. Charities are having to spend a lot of time bidding for funding in competition with other charities. The funding problem is exacerbated by the fact that the funding that is available is often linked to some specific initiative or project and not for just keeping some important and valuable service running. Tory austerity is hurting the most vulnerable in society and the pain is due to carry on increasing.

Living in the country can be very lonely , our town is a lovely market town but we have so many small hamlets and farms scattered . I feel exhausted now, first the drop in centre , then the day centre for the disabled , Friday I had a telephone call from our nearest Age Concern - 20 miles away - this branch is to close in three weeks, so no advocate, no volenteers to shop for the elderly or take them shopping or to the surgery or dentist. The elderly find the changes in the town difficult, grandchildren off the universities, daughters working untill retirement age , a generation ago it was so different. Many houses in the hamlets are holiday homes, no village shops , very few post offices . Such is life

We will just have to rally but its b****y depressing that we have to.

The trouble with volunteers now taking over again is

Church - often they are very elderly themselves but would hopefully do their best

Families - already stretched both financially and time-wise

Health and safety/bureacracy/professionalism - that might have to go by the board somewhat

But hopefully people would rally.

Everyone thinks it's wonderful living in the country but I think it can be very lonely from the sounds of things.Few services and poor transport. And yes we are tending to live longer and this creates some problems. Will I be doing the school run with my great grandchildren ?.........

Daphne, as i was taught from a young age to always be true to yourself and others , I confess, I didn't even blush when I gave the main library the false number who needed books , my thoughts were with the four who really did need them , they can't even get to the library van . It has become a joke every month now as I lug the books to the bungalows , they don't read them but love a giggle when they read the titles they have for a month , my darling Millie age 97 and just gone into a nursing home loved receiving a book on reducing wrinkles ,i am sure she flicked through it

Ooh, Annie, the thought of you being so dishonest has made me laugh.

I know a couple of my district councillors quite well and I'm always complaining about the lack of 'joined up' services for the more mature. For example, the local leisure centre used to have a 'gentle gym' session and swimming and exercise classes for those who just want to keep moving. There were concessions for over 60s. When it was outsourced, the sessions were abolished.

We have a beautiful and spacious library with various spaces and conference rooms. I've suggested we run reading groups or talks, as used to happen. Apparently we can't any more - budget cuts. Adult education, where people could meet others, has almost disappeared.

The bus service is diabolical and about to get worse. Some villages are completely cut off and more are about to be. They're not all inhabited by wealthy people wanting the country life - many of the original inhabitants were farmworkers and used to rely on local shops (no more) and the daily bus into town (also gone).

Even if these people get attendance allowance, the private companies don't want to take them on, because the travel time between visits makes them unprofitable.

The council is hot on doing surveys, so they can claim to have consulted. The councillors I know say they always recognise my survey return, because I write impassioned pleas to think about the less wealthy in the area, particularly the elderly.

PS. We don't have a police station either.

I couldn't agree more about mental health services, Jane10

Tragically, children's mental health services are in just as bad, if not worse, state.

Mental health and learning disability servioes are in my area (and I know in some others) run under the same budget and team. Local authorities have statutory obligations towards some people with learning disabilities, so there is little left for those with mental health problems. They are two separate issues and few staff have knowledge and experience of both. Mental health is still the responsibility of the NHS, but increasingly related services such as addiction, homelessness, career coaching, etc. have come under the local authority umbrella.

I've had chronic depression with acute episodes since I was in my late teens and I've seen the service deteriorate.

The church gives us use for the food bank and for the drip in centre for people who need advice on their finances, housing, unemployment etc.

Try getting volenteers to help with the mentally ill .

This is a small market town, nearest town is twenty miles away, nearest city fifty miles.

We are surrounded by farms and holiday cottages , small villages with very poor bus services, a few villages have a bus twice a week.

The library were going to stop the mobile library , we fought it and it comes once a month, to my shame i collect books for the elderly who live in sheltered accommodation and return them, the majority don't want the damn books but four do so I have to keep the numbers up to keep the library for the four. So I do lie on this , I have to. The library chap is aware of what I am doing, I collected some gardening books and there are no gardens , duh.

Adult mental health is in crisis and should be given a far higher priority than it currently has by the NHS.

Anya is thinking along the same track as me. I think people have just got used to this sort of care being a statutory responsibility. It wasn't always so. Its disappointing that we'll have to go back to the elderly and disabled being looked after in church halls by kind people. I remember those days so clearly. Also the big institutions. Not great. However, I do think that there's a place for shared living that's not necessarily mini institutions. It'll take imaginative and tenacious people to do it though. Where are the people who set up our hospices and other charitable organisations long before they became centrally funded? We need them now!

@Jane10

Ah! I see about the EU! No, not everybody died ten years earlier, but on average they did, especially if they had medical conditions for which no drugs were available.

Disabled people and those with learning difficulties were looked after in homes or hospitals. Some disabled people weren't even born, because ante-natal and postnatal care wasn't so good.

My grandparents were never looked after by family. They just died when they got ill.

I really do disagree that we did this better. One of my sisters worked in this area all her working life, ending up as NHS manager for a large part of the country. She started off nursing geriatrics in hospital in fairly inhumane conditions and moved on to district nursing. Even then, the most vulnerable were in institutions. People would sometimes send their disabled children to a home for life. Some people didn't have visitors from one year to the next. It wasn't until care in the community that people were treated more humanely, but even then it was never financed properly and family didn't play a big part (generally, I'm sure there were individuals who did as much as they could). Now it's mainly left to charities, because it's no longer the responsibility of the NHS but local authorities.

This is so sad, and it's always what happens when funding dries up or gets withdrawn. Can you perhaps look,at ways of embedding these projects within the community you live in.

Venue: can the church not help out here with the free use of a church hall or community centre?

Volunteers: can some be enabled to help out and work with those with needs?

Resources: donated food items, funding raised by small community projects....

and so on?

I don't know the scale of the project, how many people it involves and what resources are needed, but the only way to ensure the long-term viability of such good services is not to have to rely on external funding.

Unfortunately, far more elderly were dumped in geriatric hospitals and those with learning difficulties were looked after in long-term homes, too.

Anniebach is right. Funding for community services has been slashed and most community care has been transferred from the NHS to local authorities at a time when there is a greater need than ever for home and local care. I think I'll scream, if I read another newspaper article about loneliness being a killer without any strategy to overcome it.