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You and Yours: Social Care, Airbags, Qatar Airlines

Social Care, Airbags, Lasting power of attorney

09/11/2015

Social Care, Airbags, Qatar Airlines

BBC Radio 4 - You and Yours, Social Care, Airbags, Qatar Airlines

Including a look at the government's decision on how much money to spend on social care.

Consumer affairs, including government spending on social care, airbag safety, Paralympian Claire Harvey's experience with Qatar Airlines and a look at independent book stores.

The Government is about to decide how much money will be spent on social care over the next five years. Many are agreed that social care is underfunded and in crisis, putting an unsustainable strain on the NHS, and leaving tens of thousands of people without care. All this week in this series of mini-manifestos, we hear from people involved in the social care sector about what they think should be in the Chancellor's November Spending Review (November 25th).

Last week regulators in the US announced that Takata would be fined for selling botched airbags. It's at the root of a massive recall tied to seven deaths in the U.S. and more than 100 injuries. The Japanese company will be hit with additional fines if it fails to adhere to safety measures in the future.

Independent book shops have for years been in decline. In 2005 there were 1535 independent bookshops in the UK. There are now 939 - the lowest since records began. Bookshops are fighting against growing online sales and the fact that e-readers are forming 30% of UK book purchases. The biggest of these has been Amazon's kindle e-reader. Last week Amazon announced they were opening their first traditional book shop. And the Managing Director of Waterstones has said the British book retailer will no longer be stocking Kindles after 'pitiful sales'. He's replacing them with print books. So are we witnessing the return of the physical book shop on our high street?

A British Paralympian has told this programme about a really bad experience she had coming back from the International Paralympic Committee Athletics World Championships in Quatar. Claire Harvey captained the British sitting volleyball team in London 2012. She's since moved to track and field. She had to pull out of the competition in Qatar with a shoulder injury. Claire told us that she's well used to air travel but her flight home from Doha with the official carrier for the games, Qatar Airlines, made her feel like a third class citizen.

Argos's website has crashed just two days after it launched a free same day delivery service. The site went down on Sunday for several hours. Leaving these users frustrated.

Royal Mail seems to be clamping down on people who keep aggressive dogs. We recently reported on a woman being sued by the postman for damages after her dog bit his fingers when he put them through the letterbox as he delivered her mail. Now the postal service has been suspended for whole streets in a village in South Wales after the post woman was menaced by a dog. Our reporter Jason Phelps was in the village this morning.

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