Can somebody confirm what age we start referring to people as elderly these days please?
It is a tricky one to define. It is why I stuck to "older".
My parents have been retired for approx 20 years now and my father, in particular, was disappointed at the airport when they decided to print him out a boarding pass rather than using the one on his Google Wallet this summer.
Good on them. But not everyone is computer literate. Mind you I am not sure what computer literate means - some people are very able to get themselves into an awful mess.
At some point, the only people who aren't "computer literate" will be those who've chosen to make their own lives difficult.
That is very wrong I am afraid to say. Maybe in one or two generations time but not now.
On and off I have helped quite a few people older than me (66) with things requiring a computer.
In some cases a relative/friend has set something up for them and it really is getting them in a mess. It would be easier if the company they dealt with did not have an email address set up for them, or a log-in.
There are other people where there are no keyboard skills at all. Where to begin with teaching them.
It is easier to do it all for them except I am not going to be an omnipresent social worker.
When I think about all the scams people are exposed to I really think a good level of ability is required. Perhaps more ability than many people who can use the internet even have.
Computers have been common in the workplace for 25+ years now, so assuming retirement at 65, the most likely illiterate people will be 90+, so less than 1% of the population i believe.
I can think of a few workplaces I have seen where a computer is not used. Think of all the people who are not sat at a desk job.
A lot of people in the building trade - brick layers, plasterers etc.
In factories most work at the more manual level.
Does a hospital porter use a computer ?.
Does a council refuse worker use a computer ?.
I know of people who prepares food in a kitchen and they and their colleagues do not use a computer (I have been trying to teach one of them).
It's a big debate within healthcare at the moment. The demographics of many of the patients will preclude email, but a fair amount may be able to handle texts. The trouble is that an appointment letter can sit on a coffee table as a reminder, a text message can be read and forgotten about. You'd be amazed also at how many patients just have a landline number recorded on hospital systems.
I would add an email is even less likely to be remembered in someones inbox as it is more obscure than a text or a letter left on the table !.
Personally I put things as reminders on my phone and in my diary as backup !.
All this talk about the NHS and inefficient communication... well... the attached picture shows a letter I received from them recently which sums it all up.
As you can see, the letter is dated three days after the appointment it informs me has been cancelled.
Which is pretty bad in itself, but what is worse is that it was the first I even knew about the appointment existing in the first place...
If the NHS was a business, it would without a shadow of doubt be a prime contender for this thread.
Crickey. That is exactly the one I have been confronted with for someone with reading difficulties.
A letter dated after the date for an appointment saying it is cancelled but that we never knew about.
First person who read it for them ended up believing they had forgotten and missed an appointment.
I just queued up in the phone queue and patiently got to discover when the new appointment was. Which we had to cancel as no one could go with her.
Guess what. a few days after the cancelled appointment she got a letter telling her it was cancelled. I managed to head off the panic that time although some assumed I had mucked up !.
I have seen housing association imposed appointments where the letter arrives just before or just after the appointment. The letter date was only one week before the appointment. One was an annual gas safety check so the landlord could have arranged it months before.
It is a good point you make.
For these near monopolies there is no choice - you cannot walk away and choose a different health service.
Actually, with rumours of how old some NHS computers are and the consequent risk of hacking - I am very concerned about them having more of any ones personal details that is absolutely necessary. One thing I learnt in IT is we are guardians of data and more and more so that data is very valuable to others.
