Angela Rippon slams red tape for carers

Television presenter Angela Rippon criticised the “bureaucratic nightmare” facing carers and called for more support at Norfolk conference yesterday.

She spoke of her own struggle to help her mother, who has dementia, at a special conference organised for carers of people with mental health problems.

She said that when a relative develops mental health problems “you are in uncharted territory all the time”.

She added: “You have that slow journey through what can be a bureaucratic nightmare – a pathway to someone, like a GP, who will recognise there is a problem and what to do about it.”

Miss Rippon, 64, was chairing the ‘I Care’ conference at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, organised by the Norfolk and Waveney Mental Health trust.

She said: “Carers are working 24-7, 365 days a year, most of the time. Some are doing a full-time job as well.

“The stresses on people are enormous; they need respite care as well. They need respite just as much as the people they are caring for. A day off or a week off now and then, away from what can be a very intense environment, will help them to be better carers.”

She said the problem was mainly that it was hard to find out about support that exists, rather than it not being available at all.

The former newsreader, who now presents the BBC programmes Cash in the Attic, Cash in the Celebrity Attic and Sun, Sea and Bargainspotting, is also an ambassador for the Alzheimer’s Society.

She said her mother Edna, now 88 and in a care home in Devon, “inhabits a parallel universe where my grandmother, uncles and aunts visit her regularly”.

She said: “I learned early on not to tell her they were dead because that distressed her so much. No one actually told me what to do. I had to work it out for myself. I had to deal with it on my own.”

She added: “You become a carer almost by default. It sets you off on a steep learning curve, often alone and without professional help. You are entering unknown territory.”

She said she had letters from many carers who are unhappy about their situation.

“The word that came up over and over again was guilt; guilt at feeling helpless in the face of impenetrable bureaucracy, and being unable to deliver the quality and quantity of care they think their loved ones are entitled to, guilt especially at having to put their loved one into a home and feeling somehow they have abandoned them.”

The event also included a Big Brother-style “diary room” in which carers or professionals could record their thoughts and experiences on a video camera. The footage will be looked at by the mental health trust and used to improve services for carers.

The keynote speaker at the conference was Georgina Wakefield, 61, from Essex, who has set up an organisation to train carers after her son was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. She said being a carer was “exhausting”.

“You are not in control. You are never off duty,” she said.

Paul Thain, a director of the mental health trust, told the conference: “I know being a carer can be a very lonely existence. That is why we wanted to bring you together.”