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Preparing for Care and Caring – a conversation with Vicky Jones founder of Our Lives
17 Plays5 days ago
How well prepared are you for what life may throw at you?
Vicky Jones has spent her career providing care for other people. She started as a front-line care provider and is now a director. Vicky is also the founder of Our Lives, an App and podcast that helps people plan for their future lives.
As Vicky explains to host Michael Millward in this episode of the Abeceder health and wellbeing podcast Fit For My Age when we think about our futures we think about career ambitions, and lifestyle aspirations. We do not think about how the injuries, or illnesses that might mean we have to completely redesign our lives.
Vicky and Michael discuss how we can prepare for the unexpected and make life easier for ourselves and the people who will be looking after us.
Vicky discusses Swedish Death Planning and other practical steps we should all take to prepare for the unexpected.
Think needing care or being a carer is something that will happen to other people, think again. 1 in 3 people will at some point in their life be a carer.
Find out more about Vicky Jones and Michael at Abeceder.co.uk.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencastr. Because Zencastr makes every stage of the podcast production and distribution processes so easy. Hello and welcome to Fit for My Age, the health and well-being podcast from Abysseedah.
00:00:21
Speaker
I am Michael Millward. Today, I am learning about how we might just be able to survive those crises that life throws at us.
Guest Introduction: Vicki Jones
00:00:30
Speaker
From Vicki Jones, who is the founder of the Our Lives app,
00:00:35
Speaker
and host of the Our Lives podcast. Over a 25 year career, Vicky has risen from the bottom to the top in her social care career, becoming a director of social care services.
Inspiration Behind Our Lives App
00:00:49
Speaker
The Our Lives app has its roots in the experiences she had of living through the death of her father when he was just 44 years of age. Vicky is based in North Wales where the mountains are.
00:01:01
Speaker
I have been and I would go again. When I do, I will make use of my membership of the Ultimate Travel Club to arrange my travel. Because as a member of the Ultimate Travel Club, I get to travel at trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, holidays, and so many more travel-related purchases.
00:01:21
Speaker
You will find a link with a built-in membership discount in the description so that you can also be a member of the Ultimate Travel Club and just like me, travel at trade prices. Now that I have paid some bills, It is time to make an episode of Fit For My Age that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to.
00:01:41
Speaker
One that will also be worth telling your friends, family and work colleagues about as well. Very importantly on Fit For My Age, we do not tell you what to think, but we do hope to make you think.
How the App Prepares for Care Needs
00:01:53
Speaker
Now, hello Vicky. Hello Michael, thank you for having me. I am looking forward to finding out how the Our Lives app works. Before we do that, can we just expand a little bit more on your career and how you came to be doing what you do now?
Vicki's Journey in Social Care
00:02:09
Speaker
So, as you mentioned in my wonderful introduction, um i lost my dad when he was 44 years old. I left school with no GCSEs. I didn't really have an awful lot of direction.
00:02:21
Speaker
But after the my my dad's passing, it led me into a career in social care. And now I started off as a frontline worker. And somehow it was never enough because I could work with people and it was great. But wanted to make more of a change, which meant climbing the ladder, which is is no mean feat when you don't have any formal qualifications. But somehow just through pure relentlessness, perhaps is how some people would describe it. I've worked my way up. You sound like one of those people who's not prepared to accept no as an answer. Absolutely not.
00:02:56
Speaker
I don't hear the no. and so I'm not sure it always makes me very popular, but nevertheless, it's it's got me where I need to be. to affect change. And I think for every yes I've ever had, there is a hundred no's that people don't see behind
Importance of Education in Social Care
00:03:10
Speaker
the scenes. And I'm okay with that.
00:03:12
Speaker
yes So what I have seen over my career is a pattern of people coming into services who are all busting at the seams, who haven't got enough people to manage the services and deliver appropriate services to people.
00:03:26
Speaker
The majority of people coming into those services for support, had they been prepared and educated previously, they wouldn't need to come into services.
00:03:37
Speaker
Or at very least, when they do come in, they would be so much more prepared for for what inevitably lies ahead for most of us, ah particularly those of us in middle age and beyond. If i understand you correctly, when people are coming to social care services looking for help,
00:03:55
Speaker
it would be easier to help them if they had been educated beforehand if they had more information They could avoid some of the issues, challenges, problems that are involved with having an illness yourself, dealing with someone else, bereavement, childcare issues, all of those sorts of things.
00:04:13
Speaker
If people knew more, they would almost be more intelligent clients of yours and know what it is that they are looking for. That's exactly what I'm saying.
Preparedness Elements for Caregiving
00:04:23
Speaker
So there's sort three key elements here. So the first one is organisation. helping people to get organised before they need it. And it's a really tough ask of people. um And when I say organised, we're talking paperwork, things in place,
00:04:37
Speaker
to the general running of your own household so the here and now the second part is education so it's understanding that one in three of us will become a carer in our lifetime wow some of us will become carers for multiple people or some of us will become carers multiple times over or we will need to but receive care ourselves The elements of that is that it's very emotional becoming a carer.
00:05:07
Speaker
It's emotionally challenging. It's physically challenging. It's legally challenging. And it's challenging in terms of time as well.
00:05:18
Speaker
Conversations that happen amongst family members, I mean, those of us who are lucky enough to have family members to help us care, when those conversations been had, when everybody is well, we understand what people's wishes are, we understand what other people are able to give in terms of supporting us, that makes such a difference when the time comes.
00:05:37
Speaker
Because if those conversations with with other family members or indeed your parents, if that's who you're caring for, haven't taken place, when the time comes, it's more difficult to have those conversations because of the the emotional element.
Planning for Future Care Situations
00:05:50
Speaker
And also you're time poor because you're holding down a job, you're you're caring for somebody. That takes up an awful lot of people's people's time. Yes. This is one of those things that as of an ah HR ah professional,
00:06:03
Speaker
people said why do we need all these policies and procedures and they well the policies and procedures are what we use in order to decide before the event happens what we will do if this particular event happens so that we can think it through logically carefully look at all the various different issues that we might have to address rather than having to deal with it in the heat of the moment when everyone might be confused annoyed emotional, for want of a better word, we need to think about how we employ people before we actually employ them and all the different issues. And you're saying that when we're in a care situation or before we're in the care situation, we need to be thinking about our lives as a whole in terms of
00:06:51
Speaker
Well, if this happens to me, hope it won't, but if it does, this is what I would like to have happen. If this other thing happens, this is what I would like to have happen. And almost putting that down on a piece of paper. That's exactly it. That's such a great analogy. It's the preparation. i cannot emphasize enough.
00:07:08
Speaker
how much of an impact that will have later down the line. um Things like legal
Setting Up Lasting Power of Attorney
00:07:13
Speaker
documents. Now, I think I'm going to bore you with a couple of quick statistics is 78% of people in the UK don't have a lasting power of attorney in place.
00:07:24
Speaker
It's really challenging and difficult and quite unpleasant sometimes to think of our future selves when we're we're perhaps not in great health or our parents or whoever it else it is me we may be looking after.
00:07:36
Speaker
But the challenges that arise when somebody doesn't have a lasting power of attorney in place are huge and they're costly and they they cost time, they cost us money, and perhaps most importantly, they they cost us emotionally when we don't have their those in place.
00:07:52
Speaker
For example, I was talking to a lady who works in the bank the other day and she said The number of people we get in, children of ah elderly people who come into the bank and then start yelling at the staff quite inappropriately because they can't let them access their bank accounts for very good reason. Because it's safeguarding. You you can't just let other people access their accounts.
00:08:17
Speaker
their accounts and they say, but that's my mum and dad. It doesn't matter. You haven't got lasting power of attorney in place. So that what that means is we're already in a heightened emotional state. We're frustrated. We're angry because we still need to pay the bills regardless. The electric will be cut off. Vets bills won't be paid. Whatever it is, life still continues to happen.
00:08:39
Speaker
So then you have to apply to the court of protection, which costs money. It takes time. It's emotionally draining. So by doing something now that may feel kind of abstract is having the lasting power of attorney in place really will later down the line, solve a lot of problems. And absolutely the same goes for lasting power of attorney for care and health and those conversations and having that down legally now will save time, energy,
00:09:07
Speaker
and And indeed money much later down the line. yes And that's why we're so, so enthusiastic and passionate about really helping people to understand. It's not a case of if this will happen.
00:09:20
Speaker
It's very much a case of when yeah this will happen. yes And being prepared is is really the the key to all of this. Yeah, I completely get what you mean. and I'm thinking that one of the things that should happen on your 18th birthday, you're now an adult, legally an adult. Perhaps we should all be encouraging everyone is to actually sit down and think, what do I want to have to happen if I cannot do it for myself?
00:09:46
Speaker
been I'm in a car accident and injured in a way that means I'm in a coma. What do I want to have happen during that period of time? It sounds like we're all indestructible, aren't we, at that sort of age? We are. It doesn't happen to people like me. It happens to that person over there.
00:10:02
Speaker
But the reality is that it could happen to you and it might happen to you. And as we get older, our views on what we need to have happen will change. I can imagine being the person in the bank who can't access the money that's going to pay the bit the electricity bill for their parents in their home.
00:10:20
Speaker
Not an anger at the bank staff themselves, but the frustration at the situation. It's something that could have been avoided if they organised these power of attorney, which we have wills, last will and testament, which decide and describe what you want to have happen after you've died.
00:10:37
Speaker
Yeah, we need to do the same sort of thing for what happens if we can't look after ourselves whilst we are alive. Absolutely. Arguably, um a lasting power of attorney is far more important than a will because...
00:10:49
Speaker
With the greatest of respect, when your will will be useful, you'll you'll already be gone. Yes, yeah. so the lasting power of attorney is absolutely essential. I'm writing it on my to-do list now.
00:11:02
Speaker
it It needs to be on your to-do list. um And we at Our Lives, we're happy to support you through that process. When we talk about the the legal legal side of it, that that's one aspect. But we've also, what we don't sort of consider is our our household and our our day-to-day living, which is something else that we're really keen on reminding people about. It's like you said at the beginning of the podcast, is we we don't tell you what to think, but we'd like to make you think. And I love that because...
00:11:31
Speaker
Everybody's lives look so different and everybody's lives are sort of sort rich tapestries of of their possessions and their relationships and their pets and their jobs. All these different, this big mix of things that make us all the the individuals that we are.
Managing Emotional Burdens
00:11:47
Speaker
What we cover in our lives, some of the things may seem fairly frivolous. We talk people through the Swedish death cleaning process. Through the what process? The Swedish death cleaning process. and It's a wonderful book, mindy but they talk about as you're aging, you start cleaning out. What we hear a lot, particularly when somebody of you has passed away or somebody's gone into residential care or has carers come into the property, is the number of possessions that that we all accumulate over the years. Now,
00:12:20
Speaker
The harsh reality is, is nobody will love your knickknacks in the way that you love them. And I am a collector of knickknacks myself, and I'm sure my my children detest some of the things that I collect. But that's the reality is, is, but what we hear from people who've had to do house clearances afterwards is the feelings of guilt, the feelings that come with having to get rid of a loved one's possessions.
00:12:47
Speaker
Each one has a memory. Absolutely. So Swedish death cleaning, the process takes you through is give things away while you're alive. Talk to people about the story behind them. Some things are just that. They are just junk and they can go. There's no emotional attachment to them whatsoever. And you can make notes and say, once I'm gone, this can go to the charity shop. This can go to for the recycling. And it's almost a way of doing a clear out without being really brutal and also not leaving it to somebody else. Because the one thing we do here is I had to clean out my parents' possessions and I don't ever want my children to go through the same. We don't know what we don't know. We see people who come through, particularly in in sort of social care services or health services, they do something, they take action
00:13:35
Speaker
at the point of crisis. So what we're trying to achieve and what I love trying to make people think about, although it's not an easy easy ask, is try to imagine what it would be, what your life could be like in 10 years, 20
Envisioning Future Needs
00:13:50
Speaker
years. And it's really difficult to to do that, but that's what we want to make people think about.
00:13:56
Speaker
That's our aim. Things like looking at your house that you live in at the moment. Is this house still going to be suitable for me? in 10 years time.
00:14:07
Speaker
Are there trip hazards? Are there things that I can do? There's a really good example and, and one of my most popular videos is where I explain that painting the handrails in your house a contrasting colour to the walls will significantly reduce your risk of falls. It's a simple little thing. Really simple.
00:14:29
Speaker
Really, really simple. Contrasting colours can make the difference between a hospital admission or not. What we don't do is talk to people about things that they they have no control over and they can't change. Everything we do is anchored in things that you you have the ability to do something about.
00:14:47
Speaker
So it's not hopeless. It's not... overwhelming it's not really challenging it's really simple things that we've only gained from years and years of experience of working in this field and seeing the best outcomes of people always happen by making small changes to to improve their their future that is the thing that i think is is really important if you are thinking about your life in 10 or 20 years time especially someone in their 30s or 40s is thinking about their ambitions and where their career is going to be.
00:15:21
Speaker
As you get older, you become a little bit more aware of your own mortality. It's the simple little things that you don't necessarily think about because you haven't got the knowledge or the experience. or You don't want to learn through experience when there is the easy option of, yeah, you could do this and it will reduce the risk of falls. And people say, oh, you fell over, but falling has a major impact on someone's health. It really does.
00:15:45
Speaker
It's like the trigger point or the entry point into this journey. And you can be fine one day, slip, fall, and then all sorts of other problems come as a result of that.
00:15:56
Speaker
We don't take tripping and falling seriously enough, I think. Yeah, I like the idea of painting things a different kind. It's about making life simpler, isn't it? Really simple things to do. And also, in middle-aged, women have a significant spike in the number of falls that they have due to hormonal differences, eyesight changes, and so on and so forth. And the outcomes for women who are admitted hospital after a fall are poor at best. It's like you said, it's the gateway into poorer health.
Life Audit Questionnaire & Dementia Risks
00:16:27
Speaker
So this is why we created the the Life Audit, because I think as we've alluded to a number of times during this conversation, it's really difficult for people to imagine their life in 10 or 20 years outside of our ambitions, for our life I'm sure we'd all like to be sitting on a beach somewhere, watching a lovely sunset, but the reality is most of us won't be.
00:16:48
Speaker
One of the challenges with our lives is how do we get this message across to people without frightening them, because that's not what we want to do. So we created the Life Order, which is a questionnaire. it's It's on the website and you fill in a number of questions about your life.
00:17:05
Speaker
And what we can tell you from that is your dementia risk, how likely you are to get dementia because 45% of dementia cases are preventable, which again, isn't necessarily common knowledge. No, it's not.
00:17:19
Speaker
I think that's also something that is very important as well. That people know that a lot of the problems that they see their older the relatives, older friends experiencing can actually be prevented by making decisions now.
00:17:34
Speaker
A bit like why we started a fit for my age was that the doctor says to you, well, it's your age, of course. And then he looks at you and goes, ah it's our age. And you realize that when you hit your forties, you're paying the price for what you did in your twenties. Absolutely.
00:17:48
Speaker
My son listens to his music at a ridiculously high volume as I did at that age. And I remind him. that he will damage his hearing. But he doesn't care because he's because he's a young man. it's He doesn't want to think about a time when he'll make a funny noise every time he gets off the sofa and he sneezes too loud. He's not thinking about that. And and why should he? He's he's young.
00:18:11
Speaker
But there you go. And I'd be hypocrite if I... It is. We live in a world where things are marketed to us as if we are indestructible and like, yeah, let's do it. Whereas...
00:18:21
Speaker
Not listening to your music quite so loud doesn't actually reduce the enjoyment that you have in the music, but you will think in 20 years' time, I wish I hadn't had it so loud, but it happens to other people. It doesn't happen to us.
00:18:34
Speaker
It does. You're absolutely right. Hindsight is 20-20. It always has been and it always will be, to be fair. too And we're not here to stop people from having fun. We can't stop and nor should we try to stop things from happening in the future. But what we can do is reduce the risk of things happening and also in tandem with that is make people more prepared to withstand the storms that are coming. in So we can build that sort of shelter in advance, if you like.
00:19:03
Speaker
A few of the other things on the on the life order is we can tell you what your likelihood is of becoming a carer. and We've got a wonderful little algorithm in the background. I do do love a bit of data, very, very data informed. How likely you are to become a carer and also what your carer experience will be like. So if we know that your parents don't have paperwork in place and they live on the top of a high rise with no lifts,
00:19:28
Speaker
and you have no siblings living locally to to help out or you have strange relationships with your siblings, your carer experience is going to be worse than if you have five siblings living close by, all of whom have committed sharing the burden of care.
00:19:46
Speaker
And again, there are things that you can you can change now that will benefit you later down the line. For me, this is a bit of an insurance policy, like a whole life insurance. I do not disagree with you in terms of the use of the word insurance, because before we get our car insurance, we first of all have to get our driving license. And in order to get our driving license, we have to learn how to drive, pass a test, and then we're eligible to buy a car, drive a car, and get car insurance because it's a legal requirement.
00:20:19
Speaker
We started off by talking about how people end up in situations because they're not prepared or they leave behind a situation. or create a situation for someone else because they haven't thought things through themselves as to what might happen to them in the future.
00:20:36
Speaker
And so if you are either going to be the person that someone else has to care for, or you're going to be the person providing that care, knowing in advance and being able to prepare yourself knowing that there's a chance that that might happen is an insurance policy. Yeah, that's how I say it. It's taking that little bit of time and energy now to insure yourself or future-proof yourself, I think is probably a really great phrase to use in in relation to this.
Educating About Care Processes
00:21:06
Speaker
Car insurance doesn't stop the road accident happening. No. But if you have the right car insurance, you'll get your car repaired quicker. You'll get a higher car. You'll get, what else will you get? You might get legal cover.
00:21:20
Speaker
All sorts. Yeah. You get all sorts because you've thought about, well, I'm not going to be the cause of the accident. You have to bear in mind that you might not be the cause of the problem, but the problem might be thrown at you and you've got to be prepared to deal with it and deal with it in the most constructive, positive way that you can rather than allowing it to to destroy you.
00:21:43
Speaker
Definitely. What you're talking about is you're advocating for education of people and understanding the steps the actions, the things that you can do to make life easier for yourself, regardless of whether you are the person needing care or the person providing care.
00:22:02
Speaker
You can make life easier for yourself by educating, finding out, he discovering what you need to be involved in or might need to be involved in. so that you can make that experience much more positive for you and the person that you are caring for. Definitely.
00:22:19
Speaker
and there's a couple of other elements as well to our lives, if you if you don't mind me mentioning them. and Yes, please. Yes. One of those is we have built up a network of experts. So we have social workers. We have an extreme cleaning expert.
00:22:35
Speaker
We have a funeral director who's wonderful and he will talk people through because people don't know what happens when somebody dies. Who do I call? What happens next? Things that... As a nation, we're not great at talking about death culturally. And it's something we all shy away from. So we we have our own funeral director who will answer those questions very sensitively and very openly. And it gives people opportunities at our live Q&A sessions to ask those questions that perhaps you wouldn't ordinarily you know sit down over a cup of tea and old speak to your friends about. Yes. But the other thing that we were really keen on doing when we set this up was the ask us function. I love the internet and I love the way that we have all this information at our fingertips in a way that we never have done before.
Expert Advice on the Our Lives App
00:23:24
Speaker
But with that also comes the very problematic... There's too much information sometimes, isn't there? There is too much. Absolutely. And people end up going down rabbit holes and they end up with really either information overload or poor quality information. And ah we again see this coming through our advice services. Well, Google told me or ChatGPT told me now is the is is the latest one. and i think But actually, no, because there are so many different factors involved in that. So we have a really simple ask us function.
00:23:57
Speaker
Come to us, ask us a question, and we will source the answer from either one of our life advisors or we will go out to the networks to get you a proper answer. Not opinion,
00:24:10
Speaker
but fact, that's what we will provide you with. Because ah everybody's got, you know, they their uncle, they well, they told me that this is what happened. And actually, it can be a really dangerous game of giving people poor quality information, which is something we're really, really passionate um about. All that someone without the education can give you is an opinion yes or what happened to them. That does not mean to say that just because it happened to someone else, you are going to experience something in exactly the same way. Exactly. It's context is really important. And a lot of the times when we talk to friends or family, the context and the detail and the nuance is missed out of those conversations. It's not a blanket one size fits all for everybody. And the other element of it is organising your current life. Now, you as a HR professional and overseeing teams, you're out and about at work and you need to do you've lost your car documents, you've done this, you've done that.
00:25:10
Speaker
you've lost so a piece of paper and you need to go and find it and it's time consuming and it's stressing juicing. So what we have is we have the ability in our lives, that we've got the online platform where we go through all of your life documents and you upload them onto the secure portal.
00:25:27
Speaker
Now if you're on holiday, you're you're sitting at your desk at work, You can access those documents from anywhere, from your mobile phone. um And I have to speak from personal experience here.
00:25:39
Speaker
as As being the queen of trying to get other people organised, I actually lost the V5 to my car last year, which um the V5 documents got promptly added. to our lives so we'll never lose one again and it's little things like that that cost us again time money in in lost and replacement documents and emotional energy and this is what we're all about is trying to reduce all of these little risks and some of the quite large risks and they they sort of commissively
00:26:12
Speaker
really add unnecessary stress enir onto our lives. Very much so.
Conclusion & App Access
00:26:17
Speaker
I think for me, the information that you've given has been eye-opening and given me a little bit of ah a to-do list.
00:26:25
Speaker
You know, Vicky, it's been very interesting. I really do thank you for your time. And of course, the Our Lives app is available at on the website. It's a native app. Yep. So you go onto the website.
00:26:37
Speaker
and download that and the life order is on the website as well and that's that's free to take and we send you a personalized report so it's very personalized to you in your own individual circumstances. That's brilliant thank you very much I've really enjoyed our conversation thank you. Thank you very much for having me. It's been brilliant.
00:26:54
Speaker
I am Michael Millward the Managing Director of Abbasida and in this episode of Fit for My Age I have been having a conversation with Vicky Jones who is the founder of Our Lives at and host of the Our Lives podcast.
00:27:08
Speaker
You can find out more information about both of us by using the links in the description.
Health Assessments for Proactive Aging
00:27:13
Speaker
Talking about preparing for the future, one of our aims at Fit for My Age is proactive positive aging.
00:27:20
Speaker
We firmly believe that knowing the risks early is an important part of maintaining good health. That is why we recommend the health assessments available from York Test, especially their annual health test.
00:27:33
Speaker
Performed annually by an experienced phlebotomist who will complete a full blood draw at your home or workplace, the annual health test provides an assessment of 39 different health markers, including cholesterol levels, the risk of diabetes, vitamin levels, organ functions, the list is comprehensive.
00:27:52
Speaker
After hospital standard tests are carried out in a UK AS accredited and CQC compliant laboratory, you will be able to access your easy to understand results and guidance to help you make effective lifestyle changes anytime via your secure Personal Wellness Hub account.
00:28:09
Speaker
There is, as you would expect, a link and a discount code in the description. I am sure you will have enjoyed listening to this episode of Fit For My Age as much as Vicky and I have enjoyed making it.
00:28:21
Speaker
So please give it a like and download it so you can listen anytime, anywhere. To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. You will probably also want to tell your friends, family and work colleagues about this episode of Fit for My Age as well.
00:28:37
Speaker
Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think. Until the next episode of Fit for My Age, thank you for listening and goodbye.