The UK government yesterday published its “ambitious 10-year vision for how we will transform support and care in England”. We are glad that it presents the Buurtzorg way as an example of how that vision can be realised. The White Paper, People at the Heart of Care, bases its proposals on three objectives: People have choice, […]
A few weeks ago a Manchester GP and three of his staff were hospitalised by a violent attack in their surgery. A 59-year-old man was arrested and so I won’t say any more about that incident. But I do want to talk about the pressures that are stoking anger and despair among the health care […]
“Health – and social care – begins at home. Family first, then community, then the state.” So said Sajid Javid at the Conservative Party conference. It would be easier to enjoy the mirth his statement stimulated if it weren’t that it also sparked even more understandable fury. On the funny side my favourite is the […]
PPL are proud to sponsor Buurtzorg’s Caring Places: Building Healthy Communities Festival on Tuesday 19th October 2021. In preparation for joining the conversations at the festival, we have reflected as a team on our work supporting places to create healthier and happier communities. Three key themes have emerged from our conversations with colleagues. These themes […]
Yesterday, with family, I scattered the ashes of my late grandfather, so he was at last laid to rest with my grandmother. It was a sombre but funny thing to do, we know he would have laughed at us in many ways for making a fuss and doing it in the rain. He had a […]
How are work outcomes affected by the treatment of those who do it? I have been exploring this question for ~50 years. In that time, one comment stuck with me more than any other. It was made in 1998 when I interviewed a group of men in Indianapolis who had redesigned most of the US […]
“Don’t we all want to live in the place we call home with the people and things that we love, in communities where we look out for each other, doing the things that matter to us?” That’s the vision articulated by Social Care Future and we in Buurtzorg share it. In fact, we are making it happen, along with […]
Some say it’s a step forward that the United Kingdom government has finally addressed the challenge of social care funding. Others say the planned tax changes are so regressive as to be unsupportable. Both points are valid, but I say that if there is one conclusion to draw from the week it’s that we need […]
” . . . reform should build on the emerging evidence that community-based approaches can create better care and jobs at lower cost” says Buurtzorg Britain and Ireland’s Brendan Martin in this letter of his, which was recently featured in the Financial Times. It reveals some of Brendan’s thoughts about social care, which illustrate why […]
On this date 10 years ago, at 1.42 in the morning, my mother Betty Martin took her last breath as I held her hand in Lewisham Hospital, south east London. She had taken her first nearly 88 years earlier in Dunmanway, west Cork. I have spent much of the decade since that night trying with […]