May 2008 Update

A lot of our time lately has been taken up with organising National Care Association’s Annual Conference and Exhibition which is being held at the Thistle Hotel in Brighton on 29 and 30 October. Everything feels very right about this venue which is on the sea front and the hotel facilities are very good including the pool!

Cheryl, Claire and I have had to go back to the hotel more than once to identify more exhibition space due to the high level of interest in the event from commercial organisations.
We have just heard that the Minister for Social Care, Ivan Lewis MP has agreed to speak at Conference for the third successive year. We are of course delighted because, with so much going on particularly with the new Care Quality Commission due to become operational in 2009, we want to hear his latest thinking.

I returned on 15 May from a week’s holiday in Spain. I went with a friend to practice our newly learnt golfing skills but it rained most of the time we were away while the UK basked in a heat wave so it’s good to be back!

Today Nadra, Peter Grose our solicitor and I went to meet with the Chairman of the Houses of Parliament Joint Human Rights Committee, Andrew Dismore MP. This was not an easy meeting and certainly Mr Dismore and ourselves whilst wanting the best for people in receipt of social care are a very long way apart on how that can be achieved.

On 20 May 2008 I flew to Vienna with Nadra and Christine Ferrier to attend the second European Conference of the International Association of Homes and Services for the Ageing (IAHSA). NCA is a member of IAHSA and as always all three of us really enjoyed the conference but it is the contact with people from other Countries that is the real success of such Conferences.

Nadra and I had attended the first European Conference in 2006 and this year it was notable that there were many more delegates from the Eastern European Countries. Learning of the many challenges that they face certainly puts into perspective developments here in the UK.
A Date for Your Diary. The next international conference of IAHSA will be in London on 19 - 22 July 2009. Both Nadra and I are part of the organising committee and it is going to be a huge event with more than 1000 delegates expected.