November 2023: Engage Britain has now merged with Demos. You can still find all our work from 2019-2023 here, but to get in touch or find out about our new ventures, go to https://demos.co.uk/

Quote

Ellie
"A friend of mine was in hospital for five months, because they couldn't find anywhere she could be. She had no money to pay for [care] herself."
Lettie
"I used to work on a medical intervention ward, which was mainly elderly people who’ve had falls and were waiting to go for rehab or get some social care support. And they, essentially, were bed blocking. Because there weren’t the facilities available."
Aletta
"My daughter had some mental health problems a year ago. And it's very, very difficult to access mental health care in any meaningful way whatsoever. She was actually quite acute at that point and got nothing from the health service."
Emma
"I took my brother to hospital, and he broke his knee because of football. And I was basically his next of kin. I was talking on behalf of him because he was in real pain. He waited for so long, literally five or six hours, to be seen."
Natalie
"Just getting a place in a care home is actually not easy. When you're making phone call after phone call, and people say ‘We don't have beds’ or ‘We can't give you any more care at home.’"
Josh
"It's still diabolically difficult to actually have a conversation with a hospital consultant. Really, really hard."