Conference notes that the Government has been promising a Green Paper on Social Care since 2017 and that, to date, nothing has been produced. Conference further notes that Social Care is now in crisis and deemed by many to be unsustainable in its current form. The Government’s approach to this crisis has been to put […]
Conference motions
Conference notes with serious concern the June 2018 report of the Commissioner for Older People for Northern Ireland (COPNI) into Dunmurry Manor Care Home and believes that the abuse and neglect of residents in the home that it details is both shocking and appalling. Council notes that COPNI began its investigation into Dunmurry Manor after […]
Breast and bowel cancers are two of the biggest cancer killers in the United Kingdom (UK). There are around 10,000 deaths from the former and 16,500 from the latter. Across the different parts of the UK upper age limits for breast and bowel cancer screening are routinely set by the relevant health authorities. This motion […]
Conference expresses its deep concern that the suicide of an 81 year old pensioner left with no money because the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) wrongly stopped her State Pension and Winter fuel allowance because of changes to her pension credit entitlement. She had only £5 when she died. Older people often cannot easily […]
It is acknowledged that younger people are facing significant falls in living standards; however, this is not as a consequence of older people stockpiling all the wealth, as suggested by the House of Lords Committee on Intergenerational Fairness and Provision (April 2019). On 25th April 2019 the above committee called upon the Government to: “Take […]
Conference notes the increasing use of technology in everyday life and its impact on elderly and vulnerable people. With moves to make most access to local and national government and many other organisations including UNISON only available online it risks leaving a significant part of the older demographic behind. Given that many older people either […]
The National Insurance scheme was established in 1948 to provide unemployment benefit, sickness benefit, retirement pensions and various other benefits to employees and pensioners in the United Kingdom (UK). From the contributions an initial allocation is set aside for the National Health Service (NHS) and the remainder held in the National Insurance Fund (NIF) which […]
Conference notes that: 1)The Supreme Court decision in Walker v Innospec in July 2017, that upon John Walker’s death his husband should get the same pensions as would a wife had he married a woman, relies upon European Union (EU) law and sets aside a provision of the United Kingdom’s Equality Act 2010 that permitted […]
In SO2.1 Delete “end of one Retired Members’ Conference” and insert “time of their election onto the Standing Orders Committee”.
This Conference recognises that older people find it difficult to afford the cost of National Health Service (NHS) dental care. Regular dental checks can detect other more serious medical conditions, such as oral cancer and heart disease, and, as such, act as preventative health screening. Conference, therefore, calls upon the National Retired Members’ Committee to […]
Conference acknowledges that early identification and diagnosis of a range of health conditions e.g. heart and lung problems, diabetes, kidney disease and early cancers can have a significant impact and increase the chance of success of subsequent treatments. Health professionals widely agree that early diagnosis of many conditions can be of major personal health benefit […]
Conference recognises the benefits of using social media to bring together communities and groups who have interests in common and congratulates our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender plus (LGBT+) self-organised group on the many and varied ways social media has been used in branches, regions and nationally. We welcome and encourage our members to share […]
Conference notes the recent protests against the ‘No Outsiders’ method of teaching young children about equality, in particular lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender plus (LGBT+) relationships, to encourage acceptance at an early age. There has been a misuse of religion as an excuse to attack LGBT+ rights, and this is not the first time religious […]
Conference notes with concern the ‘BBC 5 Live Investigates’ report on fraud broadcast in September 2018 stating that fraudsters scammed nearly 49,000 older people across the UK in the past year, equivalent to almost six reports every hour. Furthermore the total number of reports has nearly doubled in the past 3 years and one expert […]
Conference recalls how concerned we were last year about the Intergenerational Commission’s final report published in April 2018. Conference notes, now, that the report’s publication has foreshadowed a series of further attacks on older people’s entitlements and standards of living including: 1) The Taxpayers’ Alliance’s report, Pensions Inequality, issued in August 2018 calling for an […]