Month: May 2013

Transparent priorities

NewImage

I fear one of the problems with any government, national or local, is they are not very good is being transparent or consistent in their priorities and how they are implemented. We can not often come onboard with what the government is doing because we do not know what they are trying to do as their aims may lack a consistent strategy. We can then not measure how well they are doing because we often do not know what they are trying to achieve.

 

An manifesto is only a bundle of promises to be broken, what we need is a government, once in power to be upfront and transparent in great details with their plans and priorities so we can hold them better to account.

 

If you like what I say, have a look at my site at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74, or even leave me feedback on +44 (0)121 364 1974 or email simon@simonstevens.com  

 

Beware of the medical research charities

NewImage

It is worrying how many medical charities have adverts on TV proclaiming you have a moral and social duty to donate money to them to solve Cancer, Heart disease or some other condition. My concern is if the NHS is free at the point of delivery, why do have a give money to charities so a lot of highly paid doctors working for drug companies can be subsidised, especially when the drug companies then charge high amounts for their new patented drugs, we paid for, on the excuse they must recoup their research costs, which the NHS can then not afford! 

 

It’s a corporate con which most people simply do not see, because their fears of being ill is used to rip them off. It is something that needs properly investigated and regulated so people understand this is not the way to help people with conditions, just the drug company fat cats.

 

If you like what I say, have a look at my site at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74, or even leave me feedback on +44 (0)121 364 1974 or email simon@simonstevens.com  

 

Understanding impairment, health and the social model

NewImage

One of the weaknesses of the social model is that it fails to offer a complete understanding of impairment as an identity and as a practical concern. While many disabled people do not wish to be ‘cured’ of their impairments, they clearly wish to stay as healthy as they are able to and manage their conditions. Therefore some interaction with medical professionals is needed within a social model context, where the goal of utopian cure is replaced my reasonable and practical health management. I would be foolish not to take antibiotics for a chest infection out of some need to retain my impairment identity.

 

To rationalise medical intervention, it is important to see that any treatment or therapy aims to relieve specific symptoms as to oppose to miraculously cure something broken as nothing in this world can be truly fixed but simply repaired to a weakened standard or replaced. In understanding this, it is possible to see medical interventions in a manner compatible with the social model.

 

If you like what I say, have a look at my site at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74, or even leave me feedback on +44 (0)121 364 1974 or email simon@simonstevens.com  

 

Rebuilding the social model of disability

NewImage

It is clear to me that the victimhood culture of the new sick and disabled movement has actively damaged the social model of disability in their attempts to revert base to the medical model where they can be paid off as inferior beings. They carefully argue that the social model, especially the bit about taking responsibility, can does imply to them because their minor impairments are so major to them and their negative attitudes.
The only way real disabled people are going to restore the road to their liberation, so badly damaged by groups like Disabled people against cuts and We R Spartucus is by rebuilding the social model and focusing on the next stage of taking responsibility and becoming active citizens. The relationship between the social model, health and impairment needs to be explored and reconfirmed so the sick can not exclude themselves, allowing a medical model that will benefit their laziness from harming the lives of real disabled people.
They demand real disabled people remain united with them or be quiet but that will only happen if the sick abandon their medical model desires and get behind a more inclusive social model.
If you like what I say, have a look at my site at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74, or even leave me feedback on +44 (0)121 364 1974 or email simon@simonstevens.com  

Residential care in 2013

NewImage

Those who are attacking the government for closing the Independent Living Fund are using the idea of residential care as a metaphor for something worth than death as they portray a level of institutionalisation from the 1970s, but it is fair to portray residential care in this way. While it is not my personal choice or the choice of many people, residential care is very different and better than the image the activists are portraying. It is indeed an insult to the large social care workers are deliver the best quality care they can and I would argue that people who employ personal assistants are as likely, if not more likely, to be abused in one way or than then in residential care.

 

So long as I had my computers, the internet and had my basic needs met, I could comfortably survive in any environment offered to me. But I am sure with tele care and the whole assessment process, it is indeed unlikely many ILF users will be put a residential care as it is not the best value solution people are wrongly implicating.

 

 

If you like what I say, have a look at my site at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74, or even leave me feedback on +44 (0)121 364 1974 or email simon@simonstevens.com  

 

My time in wetsuits

NewImage

I work very hard and so I need a level and type of leisure that matches it, and water based sports seem to hit the spot, especially if it involves actually getting wet. I can therefore argue that my time in wetsuits over the years have probably been my happiest. My current screensaver on my mac is a photo slideshow of all my activities over the last twenty years including my water based adventures and it does indeed remind me of happy times and how wonderful my life has been.

 

We all need to find leisure based activities which makes us feel good and it just happens mine includes wetsuits.

 

If you like what I say, have a look at my site at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74, or even leave me feedback on +44 (0)121 364 1974 or email simon@simonstevens.com  


If this was a Labour government

NewImage

If we had a Labour Government implementing the necessary welfare reforms instead of the Coalition government, would people be reacting with so much hostility? Well, I have come to the conclusion that probably not and that a lot of the so-called anti-cuts protests or in fact anti-tory protests by trade unionists, socialists and those institutionalised into the victimhood of being ‘proudly working class’. 

 

Disability has specifically and wrongly been used as a major political weapon against the government for ideological reasons by people who have often no understanding of what they talking about, or any awareness of the consequences of their own prejudices against disabled people as inferior beings is having on the fabric of society, taking attitudes against disabled people back 50 years. 

 

If this was a Labour government, I feel people would accept the reforms since that is not what they are really complaining about.

 

If you like what I say, have a look at my site at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74, or even leave me feedback on +44 (0)121 364 1974 or email simon@simonstevens.com  

 

How would my ideas on social care work for me?

NewImage

I am aware I have some quite radical ideas about social care that would change the way a lot of person receive support, potentially reducing the amount their receive while still dramatically improving the quality of their life, and I accept that would include myself. Unlike many people who talk up ideas until its affects them, I am indeed prepared to face the music of my own creations and lead by example.

 

I feel if we move away from label based compensation and towards meeting outcome based needs to benefit everyone and once people got over the change, including myself, we will all be better off in the long term, but change is difficult but often very so worthwhile.

 

If you like what I say, have a look at my site at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74, or even leave me feedback on +44 (0)121 364 1974 or email simon@simonstevens.com  

 

Who understands employing Personal Assistants (PAs)?

NewImage

While many people in social care talk about personal assistants, because it is fashionable to do so, I must wonder how many people actually understand what it really means to employ personal assistants? I have been employing PAs over twenty years, half my life, and so I think I know my stuff. But it is amazing how many professionals spend a hour listening to me talk about my social care situation or claim to now about the subject, still come up to me and my personal assistant to ask the most basic questions like do I really employ my staff? Does my personal assistant do what I ask? Hmm, yes unless they want to be sacked!

 

Then when we get to the real lived experiences of employing personal assistants, the difficulties beyond the benefits, most professionals claiming to know their stuff have not got a clue as they make often offensive assumptions about the relationship between individual employers and personal assistant. If the government really wants to support those who employ personal assistants, they need to be prepared to deal with all the issues and not as the case now, only pick out to pretty issues.

 

If you like what I say, have a look at my site at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74, or even leave me feedback on +44 (0)121 364 1974 or email simon@simonstevens.com  

 

Setting big picture goals

NewImage

I believe one people with this government as well as governments in general is that they have not set clear big picture goals in which to pin all its policies on. It talks about cutting costs but it is a goal which is not being implemented as strongly as people may realise which so much waste being created by this government. 

 

Many of the big goals of government are there and have always been there regardless of who was in powerful like reducing crime, effective justice, full employment and so on, although have not been strategically followed through. I believe every penny spent by the government must be linked to achieving these top goals in one way or another, which should be clear and transparent.

 

It is only which we have a government clear about its goals and its plans to achieve them will we have a government accountable to its citizens.

 

If you like what I say, have a look at my site at www.simonstevens.com or follow me on twitter, @simonstevens74, or even leave me feedback on +44 (0)121 364 1974 or email simon@simonstevens.com