Living with Alzheimers

Todays press release by the Alzheimer’s Society has finally pointed out the giant elephant currently in the room of the UKs health system. Stating that the NHS currently does not have the training or resources in place to deal with the rising levels of patients with mental health issues this report is something that every single person in the country should be listening to, and getting angry about.

Please do not take this post to be anti-NHS as a whole, or an attempt to undermine the people working in it- far from it, I have been dealing with a close family member suffering from vascular dimensia (a very common form of Alzheimers) for the last 5 years – and have always found them to be beyond exceptional, working long and hard whilst being fustrated by lack of funding and assistance to go about their job to the best of their ability.

Alzheimers is one of the great unspoken diseases that is still (rather like most mental illness) hidden away, ignored and hoped to be avoided. In reality with a aging population this is a problem that will very soon be unavoidable, and out of control. In short (and I desperately hope this is a false prophesy for you) it is extremely likely that you will have to deal with the affects of Alzheimers to either yourself, or someone you hold dear.

So todays press release, a result of several months of research and investigation should worry us all- and whilst we are in a position to do something to make a difference, should be ringing every bell for it to become one of the major manifesto pledges of parties regarding the NHS in the forthcoming election.

I would like to make this a continuing story over the next few weeks, and would be really interested to hear your experiences and thoughts on the matter also. If you’d like to get involved feel free to drop a note below.

Greenpeace go to Parliament

As we speak there are ‘over 40′ (Greenpeace and Jason claiming 55- but will use BBC just to be sure…) Greenpeace protesters on the roof of the Palace of Westminster waiting to welcome politicians back from their holiday tomorrow. They have put forward a list of 12 policies to save the climate. It’s a really interesting read – and one that at some point soon would make an interesting blog to pull apart what is and isn’t viable at the moment.

What it did make me think of, however, was something I had spotted a few weeks ago, an idea I really like, Solar Roadways. Now bear with me here, I know that this idea is slightly Sci-Fi but the more I think about it the more brilliant a solution it becomes.

Essentially some clever boffin types have produced a solar panel which can double up as road – it has a similar amount of grip to tarmac, heats itself, has LEDs to flash up messages and change road routes and puts electricity into the grid. They come in a kind of Lego type square 12′ by 12′ sheet that connects up and lasts for around 21 years (as opposed to current tarmacs life expectancy of around 7) and based on a 15% efficiency they think they can produce 7.6kWh per day. I quote from their site:

Our hypothetical 4-lane, one-mile stretch of road would require 1760 Solar Road Panels™. That means that, each day, this stretch of Solar Roadway™ would produce at least 13,376 kWh of electricity. That’s 4,882,240 kWh per year – enough to take 500 homes completely “off grid”. You don’t get that out of asphalt!

Essentially then, you could get the main road through smaller towns kitted out with these things and power the town itself not to mention that they then can sell any left over power to other countries or electricity suppliers at a nice profit going straight back into government coffers!

Anyway that just scratches the surface of the whole idea, I’d recommend you go and have a look – although these guys may be a little over their heads when you start delving into the depths of the website, surely ideas like these are things we should be considering for future climate action. As always would love to hear you thoughts and ideas, have you spotted anything similar we should be trying to bring to peoples’ attention?

Can we twitter our way out of the recession?

A few days ago, through reasons I can’t face going through yet again I found myself marooned in the small village of Thanet, which, apparently, is somewhere near Reading. Upon finding out that the next train I could get was about an hour later I posted a comment on the twitter site that simply put – ‘Stuck in Thanet for an hour, is there anything good to see?’. Within minutes I had 4 messages with suggestions. This got me thinking…

In the last year Twitter has expanded by 1,840%, Facebook now has 300 million active users which, if it were a country would make it the fourth largest country in the world. With alarming regularity we seem to be deluged with a new social media site claiming to be the ‘next big thing.’ 69% of the entire UK population is now online. Businesses seem to be slowly cottoning onto the possibilites of using this for their own advantage, check out Ford for really interesting usage of social media to change the perceptions of their company. Even Gordon Brown has now got a Twitter, and who can forget his first appearance on YouTube?

Despite all these facts social media is still viewed in certain circles with slight suspicion, and I think this has meant that we have missed a trick in kick starting the economy.

If we look at Britain as a company it is obvious that something somewhere recently has gone horribly wrong. In a business prospective if this was happening it would trigger a full internal review – checking that all parts of the company are paying their way, are as productive as possible, accountable for their role, and if not making the necessary changes. As the world is getting smaller, with better transport, bigger supermarkets and the internet, the sense of community and belonging has slowly evaporated from small communities. But there is no reason not to use the internet to combat this.

In times of hardship people always bemoan the downfall of the ‘high street’. People start looking inwardly, trying to balance the financial need of shopping as cheaply as possible with the responsibility of helping the smaller businesses maintain their income. The smaller businesses struggle with maintaining footfall, keeping people in the town center rather than out of town shopping centres through one way or another.

The idea of using social media to get out of the recession is as simple as it is effective. Every town employes a marketing and communications specialist. This person is employed by the town for the town and as such has no political affiliations. The role of the position is to market the town to the inhabitants, and also the people from outside the town. They use email, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter and any other means possible to brand their area and make it as attractive as possible. They organise events during the year in the town centre and market it appropriately. They liase with local businesses and leisure industries in a bid to try to drive tourism to the town and use these to kick start the economy in the towns again, all the time putting it in the faces of the local community.

This, done well, could have far reaching implications. Giving people a reason to to head into the town centres, to take more pride in the area they live in and to spend that little bit more money than they were expecting to would kick start the economy in the town, larger events would give locals a reason to bring friends and family from outside the area into their part of the world. It would also establish a sense of community, something that has long been lamented as lost in certain circles. If the smaller elements of the economy start to work again the cogs of the big wheels will slowly grind into action once more.

What do you think? Obviously there are a few issues in this idea, but as always I’m interested to know what you may think! Leave a comment and hopefully we’ll be able to throw the ideas round to something a bit more well rounded. In the meantime I’m off to try to become king of Facebook.