No images? Click here Inform & Advise IntroductionHi all Welcome to the 6th COVID-19 special edition of Inform & Advise. The constant flow of new or changing information about the response to Coronavirus appears to be slowing down a bit now, which is making our job a bit more manageable and is also why there wasn’t an Inform & Advise sent out last week. I’m hoping that you are all seeing a similar drop off, if not in terms of enquiries (which we hear are still well up compared to usual numbers), then in the flow of new information you need to take in. And hopefully now that services and support are finally coming into place you are more able to provide the answers that your clients are looking for. At Age UK we are almost entirely focussed on responding to the COVID-19 crisis and have put on hold pretty much all of our business as usual. This, along with the reduction in resources that we are needing to produce, has meant the I&A Development Adviser (IADA) team are able to support the financial security of Age UK through furloughing a member of our team. It wasn’t an easy decision to make, as I’m sure many of you have also experienced in recent weeks, but we appreciate the importance of reducing our running costs in the current situation. We have decided to furlough one member of the team at a time, for 3 weeks on a rota. Mark Norris, the IADA for the North West, West Midland and Wales kindly volunteered to be first of us to be furloughed from Monday the 27th of April. Mark will return to work on Monday the 17th of May. In the meantime Age UKs and Age Cymru in Mark’s regions can contact myself (mark.tomlinson@ageuk.org.uk) or Jan Davis (janice.davis@ageuk.org.uk) for any support required for their I&A service. In this issue of Inform & Advise we have details of a number of new resources to support local Age UKs and of updates to our range of COVID-19 specific I&A resources. Information about the DWP’s plans for online Pension Credit applications and requests from a couple of our policy colleagues for information on how the easing of social care regulations and the challenges of accessing cash when self-isolating are impacting our clients. Any information you can provide on these issues will be invaluable as we seek to influence statutory policy makers and commercial organisations on how they can best support the most vulnerable of older people during the current crisis. As stated previously we will be sending out newsletters on a frequent but irregular basis as we have guidance and information to share with you. Mark Tomlinson, Senior I&A Development Adviser Please note: some items in the Briefings are not relevant for partners in Wales; these are marked up in the Briefings. In this issue
Updated Resources for advisersWe have continued to update the template responses to common Coronavirus queries and since the last issue of Inform and Advise, on the 17th of April, we have updated the following templates:
To view the templates visit our wiki. On the first screen of the wiki, under “SPACES” select “Age UK Advice” and then under “PAGE TREE” select “Coronavirus – template responses”. NB: if you get a bit lost in the menus (which is easy to do) click on the Age UK logo in the top left and this will take you back to the first screen. Also since our last issue of Inform & Advise we’ve had updates to three of our TASO briefings. Liam has updated the ‘COVID-19 Benefits briefing’ to include:
David has updated the ‘Changes to the Care Act 2014 under the Coronavirus Act 2020’ briefing to include:
Sheelagh has updated the ‘Funerals Briefing’ to include:
(NB these updates are also in the template response for funerals) These briefings are also available on the Age UK COVID-19 online hub in the dedicated I&A hub. In addition Liam has updated the ‘Adviser briefing on mixed-aged couples’ with some additional examples of how couples who are either side of state retirement age are effected by the changes to welfare benefit legislation. How to order copies of Age UKs Coronavirus guideWe put together a coronavirus information guide that covers information about the virus, ways people can stay safe and well at home and what to do if you’re worried about someone else. There’s also a list of useful organisations and their contact details. Copies are in stock in the warehouse and are available to order. They can be delivered to local Age UKs or even home addresses as people begin to work remotely. They can be handed out to those coming to us for advice and through our services, included in grocery deliveries or just popped through the door in local communities – especially for those most vulnerable. Also, if you have any contacts at local authorities, communities groups or anyone else that you think may be interested in copies of the guide, please let them know they can contact me for more information – tim.sheaff@ageuk.org.uk. Orders for local Age UKs can be made at orders@ageuk.co.uk How to order your updated welfare benefit rates posters and booklets for advisersUsually, 20 welfare booklets, three A3 posters and one A2 poster are sent to all local Age UKs. However, with people working remotely, orders should be made directly for delivery to the most suitable address. Orders can be made at orders@ageuk.co.uk DWP to enable online claims for Pension CreditWe’ve been contacted by the Pension Service to let us know that they have introduced regulations to allow for digital claims to Pension Credit – in addition to the current telephone and postal claim channels. This is being done to help ensure people can make a claim in the current circumstances. The proposed changes will come into force next week and hopefully we’ll be able to share information with you soon about how you and your clients can make Pension Credit claims online. Help Age UK to understand the impact of the easements of the Care Act on your clientsAre the social care needs of older people being met in your area? Please share the experiences in your area to influence NHS England and the Government. The Health Influencing team at Age UK are seeking to understand from colleagues in the network how their local health and social care systems are responding to the social care needs of older people in their area. This is to help inform national conversations with NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care about ensuring people’s social care needs are met. We are particularly interested to know about hospital discharge, Care Act Easements and changes to provision:
How well the hospital discharge process is working in your area. How well do you think older people’s care needs are being met now there is a focus on rapid discharge?
What have you heard about care act easements coming into effect in your area? How has the local authority communicated with your or providers about this?
How are the people you are in touch with experiencing changes to their usual care provision? What are there any common themes? How well are the people you are in touch with managing to access social care provision for the first time? Please email Daisy Cooney, Health and Care Policy Manager on daisy.cooney@ageuk.org.uk with any relevant information or experiences you may wishes to share. Help Age UK to understand the issues that people are having with accessing cash and banksAge UK has been working closely with a number of banks, the Post Office and regulators to ensure that older people can continue to access cash during the lockdown. This has seen them start to offer dedicated phone lines for older people, simplifying third party access to accounts and sending cash to housebound people through the post. As these services start to ramp up, we would be very interested to receive feedback – both positive and negative – on how they are (or are not!) helping older people access their cash. We would also be interested to hear of any on-going problems that banks or the Post Office are not addressing at the moment. Any information that you are able to provide will be fed back to the banks – anonymously – to help them ensure that they can target effective assistance to people who need it the most. If you have any information, could you send it top Neil Johnson, Financial Security and Inclusion Manager at neil.johnson@ageuk.org.uk? Information on dealing with nuisance callersMillions of older and vulnerable people are spending longer at home to help protect themselves from the Covid-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, scammers have found new ways to identify and target potential victims, and people could face being harassed by nuisance and scam callers. Age UK has produced a guide (‘Scams Awareness – getting help with nuisance callers’) that offers information and advice about how to protect against these calls and what to do if someone becomes a victim. To accompany this guide we’ve also produced a guide for local Age UKs on how to reassure people that you contact that your call is genuine (‘Scams Awareness – positive wellbeing calls – telephone scams’). PDFs of both guides are available on both the loop and the online Age UK Coronavirus I&A Hub. Age UK welfare benefits calculator newsletterA few Age UKs have contacted us to check that the online benefits calculator is being updated in-line with DWP and HMRC changes in response to the Coronavirus. Entitledto, the developer of the calculator, are constantly updating the calculator to reflect legislative changes, although obviously there will be some delay in between a change being announced and the calculator being amended. If you would like to be kept up-to-date with changes to the calculator and also learn more about the functionality of the calculator you can subscribe to Entitledto’s monthly newsletter by clicking this link. Volunteer toolkit for those supporting dementia sufferersMany of those already helping or volunteering in their local communities during Coronavirus will be supporting people affected by dementia. Alzheimer’s Society has produced a top tips guide, designed to give you an understanding of dementia, its impact and the how you can help in your community during the pandemic. It was created together with people affected by dementia and includes five simple things you can do, like learning a little more about the condition to tips on communicating effectively, or where to signpost to for support. Control what you get from Age UK communicationsSign up: You can subscribe to newsletters for local Age UKs using our online sign-up. Control what you receive: You can update your existing subscription and details online. Unsubscribe: To unsubscribe, please email signpost@ageuk.org.uk. If you click the unsubscribe link in the footer you'll unsubscribe from all Age UK newsletters. |