Yesterday's carer's meeting

[Sonia]

Hi Again,

At our meeting yesterday,someone mentioned that you can apply for a free bus pass for your travel if you are a carer and take the person out.Also they mentioned a free pass to go with the person you care for to look around National Trust places.Does anyone else know about these?
I know you can get a pass with the photo of the person you care for,pay a one off payment of £5.50, and you can go with them free to certain picture houses.Which I thought to be very good,as it must cost that for one film these days.

Makes you just wonder just what else is out there that no one ever tells you about.What does anyone else know that I don't then.

It would be nice to have a thread about what good things folks find about caring,I know it can be a terrible hard job for folks,but this might help cheer is up on this lovely weekend.
Take care Sonia xxxxxx. So glad I am at the seaside lucky old me!!!!!!

[Matt Hill]

Hi Sonia

The cinema pass you mention is a national scheme. However bus travel is determined locally so it will depend where you live. Many areas local councils give carers free bus travel is they are with teh eprson they care for but we have started to hear of this being axed in some areas as a way to save money. So it all depends on your local council's policy.

All the best

Matt

PS - we have a section of the forum called "Tips and Practical advice" which is for putting useful thigns you find out as a carer.

[Lazydaisy]

The National Trust is free for a Carer(if your caree pays full price). My son paid to be a member, and he could take any Carer in with him.
In Carmarthenshire in Wales, the National Botanic gardens are free for a Carer at the discretion of the person at the till.
I will always ask, if we are going somewhere, after all they can only say no, and more often than not, people say yes.

[Boggle]

In Carmarthenshire in Wales, the National Botanic gardens are free for a Carer at the discretion of the person at the till.

The discretion thing can be a bit worrying - on one occasion when we visited the christmad lights at Westonbirt Arboretum we were directed away from the disabled parking by the guy on the gate - he wanted us to go to the furthest and darkest part of the parking - I told him I needed to be parked by the lit part of the parking to see what I was doing with the wheechair - he grudgingly let us park a bit closer - only when I had the wheelchair out of the car and put together did he see his mistake - he came over and told me 'oh I thought you just had a buggy'!!!!!!! So he had decided that as my daughter is small she must be using a buggy not a wheelchair and had not allowed us to use the disabled parking despite having a blue badge!