NHS Costs: what are YOU doing to help?
18/08/2010
We are constantly being bombarded with details of the financial cuts required to stop standards falling. As we get older we will all rely upon the National Health Service more and more, whether we want to or not. We are told about the very high cost of providing this service and we all fear that some of the inevitable cost will be from the NHS budget.
More Stories
Saving for a rainy day? What's the point?
I use up my saving on pleasure (mainly travel) while I am healthy and interested in life. For many people this can be a frightening prospect and we want to know that we are 'secure', but sometimes savings are only there for those who inherit. Why deny yourself the pleasure of spending some of it?!
"What a mean trick the Government has played upon older people"
What a mean trick the government have played on us when they cut free swimming for young people and the elderly. The savings are negligible but the charge on the National Health could be much higher eventually.
Cheque changes: did retailers or Banks ask the customers what they want?
The 24 bank and building society members of the UK Domestic Cheque Guarantee Card Scheme have announced that the Scheme will close on 30th June 2011, meaning that it will no longer be possible to guarantee a cheque under the Scheme after this date. One MT reader asks, Did retailers or Banks ask the customers what they want?
'People need people': how YOU can help
"Tony Watts laments (People need people) the lack of ‘a means of bringing people together to help each other in a coordinated and purposeful way’.
Befriending schemes offering home visiting and regular telephone calls made by volunteers do exactly this." One MT reader explains how you can get involved.
Where did it all go wrong? I'll tell you!
I can't resist responding to Terry Waite in July’s Mature Times in which he raised many bones of contention by asking - where did it all go wrong?
Elder abuse is often closer to home
I have just seen your May issue and read the leader on financial abuse of older people.
I am a Welfare Benefit Adviser for my county Social Services and, unfortunately, come across financial abuse frequently - mainly by relatives and/or their carers I am sorry to say.
Statins and cholestrol
Re the article on the front page of the June 2010 issue of the Mature Times on the problems associated with statins which made for very interesting reading.
Is it right to keep waving the flag?
In our June edition of Mature Times we covered the Armed Forces Day celebrations - a day to honour those who have served our country over the years. Not all of our readers were impressed. Here are some of the letters and emails we have received - and we would welcome your views on this important issue too.
Why do women get this privilege?
Since women live on average several years longer than men, what was the reasoning behind allowing women to receive their state pension five years earlier?
What have computers ever done for us?
A lively correspondence has broken out on the pages of Mature Times with many readers bemoaning the intrusion of computers into our lives.
The spectre of lonely people staring blankly at computer screens, missing out on human contact, has been invoked, as well as countless jobs lost and the dehumanisation of any processes. One reader provides an eloquent response – and we’d like to know where YOU stand on the great debate: what have computers ever done for us?
"Pensioners take cleaning jobs while Council bosses get five figure bonuses"
"...So here we have, on the one hand, this lady of retirement age worrying about how to pay her council tax bill, and taking on cleaning jobs to do so and, on the other hand, people employed by the council receiving five figure bonuses on top of salaries so enormous they beggar belief. There is something very wrong here."
Easing of patient waiting times
I hope to bring to the attention of all your readers the proposal to remove the targets on 4 hour casualty waiting time and the eighteen weeks fom referral to treatment. I believe that this is a retrograde step; we all remember 12hour waits in casualty and years for routine operations like hip replacement.
Shameless
Having worked in a very large British company for over 30 years I retired with a moderate company pension to suppliment my State Pension. I have just been advised that my Company Pension will not be increased this yeat due to the last RPI being negative at -1.4%.
What the 25p for 80+ pensioners should be now...
One of your readers (MT April 2010) raised the subject of the 25p for 80 plus pensioners. This 'award' was introduced in 1971 and, according to an official relative money chart I have, you would need to multiply by something like 16 - and it would make more sense to give us £4 a week.
