Blog posts for tags:Health‚ Public Services and Care, Health‚ Public Services and Care, healthcare

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Dealing with dementia

By , Monday 18 May 2015

This week, dementia – the progressive disease that leads to memory loss and communication problems – is being highlighted with Dementia Awareness Week, hosted by the Alzheimer’s Society. The topic of dementia is often a sensitive one, but it’s sadly something that most people have had to deal with in some capacity. One in six people over the age of 80 suffer with the degenerative disease – and shockingly, it’s estimated that 90,000 sufferers could be undiagnosed – so many of us have had experience of caring for a loved one as they battle dementia.

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An update on adult skills funding in 2015-16

By David Grailey, Chief Executive, Wednesday 22 April 2015

David Grailey

The cuts to funding for adult skills in 2015-16 have been widely documented in the last month as the Association of Colleges warns that up to 190,000 adult education places will be lost next year. However, the government has stated that although overall funding is being cut, high quality apprenticeships and English and maths are being prioritised to ensure that learners are literate and numerate, with vocational qualifications of prestige.  At NCFE, we have been working hard to ensure that our popular and valued vocational qualifications have their funding protected and we’re pleased to say that we now have almost 100 funded qualifications available for 15-16 with further qualifications pending approval. These qualifications include courses within Health and Social Care such as Level 2 Certificate in the Principles of Dementia Care, Level 2 Certificate in the Principles of the Prevention and Control of Infection in Health Care Settings, as well as substantial qualifications such as Level 1, 2 and 3 Diplomas in Entry to the Uniformed Services and many more.

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Securing access to childcare

By Kristina Gray, Communications Assistant, Monday 20 April 2015

Kristina Blog

The build-up to the general election has seen the topic of childcare discussed by all of the major political parties. Various pledges have been made in relation to accessing childcare, some of the highlights of these are; Labour: Labour want to ensure all primary schools guarantee access to childcare from 8am-6pm, and also extend free childcare from 15 to 25 hours for working parents of 3 and 4 year-olds.

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A call for improvements to end of life care access

By Marcus Ridley, Communications Assistant, Tuesday 17 March 2015

Marcus Blog

A report by the Commons Health Committee has called for improvements to be made to the access available for social care at the end of life. Following the report which claimed there was “unacceptable variation” in the quality of care received across England, Care minister Norman Lamb said the government will now look closely at a policy of free end of life social care for all. Currently, families seeking free care for a dying relative at home have to go through a complex process of means testing and assessment to identify if they qualify for funded support for end of life care. As a result, more than half of deaths across England still occur in NHS hospitals, despite more than two-thirds of people saying they would prefer to spend their last days at home.

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Life Lessons

By Kevin Gill, Marketing Projects Leader, Monday 16 March 2015

Kev Blog

Last month the Education committee published the report on PSHE and SRE in schools. Describing the government’s strategy for improving education in this area as weak and as a mismatch between rhetoric and the actual steps that have been taken to improve education in this area, the report didn’t exactly hold back.

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Diagnosing dementia

By , Wednesday 12 November 2014

The NHS has recently focused more of its attention on the diagnosis of dementia in an effort to tackle the number of people in the UK living with the disease undiagnosed, thought to be around 90,000. More worrying, it’s estimated less than half of the 800,000 people in the UK likely to be suffering from dementia have been formally diagnosed.

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The importance of Further Education

By , Wednesday 10 September 2014

Further Education is an option for people at any point in their life. For some, it’s a natural progression from school; for others it’s an option later in life should they choose to pursue a different career path, upskill, or simply learn something new. Vocational education can come in the form of a 2-year Apprenticeship, a college course, or a part-time course that can be studied in the learners’ spare time and allow them to fit it around their other commitments. Yet in comparison to Higher Education and schools, it’s not as widely researched and as a result, it could be seen as an easy target for funding cuts. We have iterated numerous times how important the Further Education sector is to both personal and professional development, and the nature in which qualifications are rated according to importance, with specialised subjects more likely to lose funding in the education sector. Earlier this year the government announced they were to cut funding for 5000 adult vocational courses and highlighted particularly niche and ‘low value’ courses such as self-tanning and balloon artistry, which appeared to support the notion that many of these courses were invaluable and a waste of taxpayers’ money, when in fact many other valuable courses that weren’t mentioned also faced the axe.

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The future of PSHE in schools

By David Grailey, Chief Executive, Monday 16 June 2014

David Grailey

Vocational qualification courses cover a plethora of subjects and initiatives beyond just the headline grabbing performance point carrying ones. Just last month I read, with great interest, the latest news that MPs’ have launched an inquiry into the future of PSHE and Sex and Relationship Education (SRE) in schools. This MPs’ inquiry comes on the back of last year’s Ofsted report which found that 40% of the 50 schools visited didn’t offer a good enough standard of PSHE. The report, entitled ‘Not Yet Good Enough’ also found that half of secondary schools needed to improve SRE.

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Upskilling the Health and Social Care sector

By David Grailey, Chief Executive, Thursday 12 June 2014

David Grailey

There’s no doubt about it, the Health and Social Care sector is a growing industry, employing millions of front line staff delivering care to vulnerable people in society. But are these staff adequately trained and qualified to do the tasks that are expected of them? It’s a hotly debated topic which has caused controversy across the sector following the recent independent Cavendish review which has highlighted inconsistencies in training.

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Health education crucial to pupil progress

By David Grailey, Chief Executive, Friday 23 May 2014

David Grailey

Sec Ed have reported this week that the narrow focus on academia promoted by performance measures and Government policy could be ‘actively harming’ young people’s health and wellbeing. The article calls for PSHE to be made a statutory subject and for “health education” to be integrated into the wider curriculum. The academic group argues that education policy is increasingly encouraging schools to maximise academic attainment at the cost of children’s wellbeing.

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