218 lines
7.2 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
218 lines
7.2 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
culture
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tvandradio
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6763193
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-----
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# Can Gerry Robinson Fix Dementia Care Homes? BBC One, Review
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## Damian Thompson reviews last night's television
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![Can Gerry Robinson Fix Dementia Care Homes?][1]
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Can Gerry Robinson Fix Dementia Care Homes? Photo: BBC
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By Damian Thompson 12:03AM GMT 09 Dec 2009
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[Comments][2]
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Until I watched **Can Gerry Robinson Fix Dementia Care Homes?** (BBC Two), I
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didn't know that old people's homes are sometimes called "granny farms". Not a
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nice expression - but not that wide of the mark, either, because even battery
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chickens have more fun than residents trapped in the worst of them.
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Most of us find the subject of these homes intimidating, something to be
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postponed until it can't be avoided. I once wrote a long feature about a local
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authority home in Hampshire. Being surrounded by so much frailty, love and
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fear was overwhelming, and I remember a nurse gently cutting an interview
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short because "the man from the Telegraph is a bit upset". And that was a
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superbly run establishment in which most residents, though their powers were
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failing, were not suffering from full-blown dementia.
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What a terrible thing dementia is, and no wonder it requires specialist care.
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Alzheimer's is the nastiest variety, but there are many forms that can turn
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once benign old people into rather frightening figures, because their
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irrational terror is infectious. You straighten Elsie's cardigan, and she
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shrieks: "You're trying to kill me!" Her cries penetrate the mental fog of the
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other residents in the room and soon they are all agitated.
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How can even the capable Sir Gerry Robinson, former chief executive of
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Granada, hope to "fix" these homes when dementia itself is unfixable? We shall
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have to wait for the second programme to hear his full proposals, but it
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didn't take more than a few minutes to identify one scandal. The first home he
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visited was Woodland House in Torquay, a privately owned dementia home funded
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by the local authority. It was managed by Jane, a tubby nurse who said
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cheerfully, "These are our little residents," indicating a circle of mournful
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- and not noticeably little - old people left to stagnate in a dingy lounge.
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Questioned more closely, Jane wasn't so cheerful. She had recently moved to
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Woodland without receiving specialist training in dementia. As Gerry put it:
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"At best, she was hazy about what the job involves." Jane confessed that
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inspectors had graded Woodland "poor", or perhaps "inadequate" - she couldn't
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remember. But when Gerry checked, he found that Woodland was officially
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"adequate", which makes you wonder what a "poor" home looks like.
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## Related Articles
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* [Can't Take it With You, BBC2, preview][3]
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14 Jan 2011
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Anyone can buy a property and run a granny farm, so long as they have the cash
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and no criminal record. During the boom, those "little residents" left
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mumbling in front of the telly were a good investment. Now, not so much. Later
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in the programme, Gerry met a care home entrepreneur who was selling his
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enormous country house because business was drying up. This man was not a
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shyster; his best homes were excellent and he was genuinely shocked that, as
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the programme discovered, a lady in one of his establishments was left calling
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out "Where am I? Help me!" for half an hour before staff noticed.
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Gerry's message was sensible: find small ways of improving the lives of your
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residents, based on specialist advice, and that will help you return to
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economic viability. We must hope he's right, because 250,000 Britons are going
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to end up with dementia, and we're in serious trouble if this industry fails
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to develop the right mixture of profitability, professionalism and compassion.
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One day, it could be you or me screaming blue murder when a nurse tries to
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straighten our cardigan.
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Gerry Robinson was the ideal choice for this programme: despite his anger at
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the scandal, he showed touching kindness to confused patients, overworked
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staff and even proprietors. His own father had been struck suddenly by
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dementia, and one reason for taking on the assignment was to achieve "closure"
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after the old man's death. Coincidentally, a similar motive lay behind
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**Robson Green's Wild Swimming Adventure** (ITV1). The actor's father, a mad
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keen swimmer in coastal waters, recently died; Robson wanted to pay tribute to
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him by mastering the art of "wild swimming" himself.
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It was a nice idea, engaging enough for the first few minutes, but there's a
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limit to the number of times you want to hear a cheerful Geordie tell you
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that, although the scenery's lovely, the water's freezing. He reminded me of
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John Noakes, whose gruelling outdoor challenges for Blue Peter in the late
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Sixties and early Seventies fitted neatly into 10-minute films. Which was long
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enough, frankly. Robson Green's "adventure" took him to a whirlpool in
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Scotland, a lake in Snowdonia, and the North Sea around Holy Island. I'm sure
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these locations were all very carefully chosen, and the production values were
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high, but in the end what we had was a two-part, two-hour documentary about a
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middle-aged man swimming in jolly cold water.
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[What are these?][5]
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* Share: [Share][4] [ ][6] [ ][7]
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[Tweet][8]
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/6763193/Can-Gerry-Robinson-Fix-
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Dementia-Care-Homes-BBC-One-Review.html
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Telegraph
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## [TV and Radio][9]
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[![TV Guide][10]][11]
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### [TV Guide UK: searchable TV listings][11]
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[![Paul Merton presents the Birth of Hollywood][12] ][13]
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### [Today's TV highlights][13]
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[![][14] ][15]
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### [Britain's Got Talent: where are they now?][15]
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[![][16] ][17]
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### [Doctor Who - the top ten best Doctors][17]
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[X][4] Share & bookmark
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[What are these?][5]
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Share:
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* [ ][4]
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* [ ][7]
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* [Tweet][8]
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* Advertisement
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![][18]
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telegraphuk
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Please enable JavaScript to view the [comments powered by Disqus.][19] [blog
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comments powered by Disqus][20]
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