I was reading the coronavirus bill, that was speedily passed through parliament before any carers organisations could complain about the relaxation of social care and obviously the Nhs and their previous responsibilities.
Responsibilities they did not take seriously previously, in many care need cases. Many of which have been exposed in the media.
The new bill which I believe is in force for 2 years states:-
allow NHS providers to delay undertaking the assessment process for NHS continuing healthcare for individuals being discharged from hospital until after the emergency period has ended.
I actually realised, that it had taken at least 16 months for the Nhs to do this very thing in 2006/07 when my son was ready for discharge and now they are given a license to delay without any consequences continuing health care packages. Of course, there were no consequences back then either so what is the difference now? This service has always been allowed to gain control of deprivation of liberty and of being allowed to delay funding, even prior to the coronavirus Bill.
It does make me angry, this is set in stone, at the moment, as I remember how damaging it was to my own son when he was waiting endlessly to leave hospital and the services were arguing over ‘who would pay’. The Nhs charged £7500.00 per week for his unnecessary hospital stay, in 2006/7. A long term stay which deprived my son of his liberties and further ruined his life from there onwards. It should never have happened.
And I have a right to bring this up when my son still suffers the consequences of the actions of staff that enforced this. It has left him with PTSD as well as already having learning disabilities, low functioning autism, temporal lobe seizures…as well as other underlying health problems.
The whole combination of which now produces what I can only describe as resembling schizophrenia combined with end of life dementia. Only not being so… Nevertheless, the resembling combination has been going on for decades at a much greater level because that is the consequence of combined Learning disabilities, autism and seizures of that nature.
Here we have some more of the speedily drawn up coronavirus Bill.
make changes to the Care Act 2014 in England and the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 to enable local authorities to prioritise the services they offer in order to ensure the most urgent and serious care needs are met, even if this means not meeting everyone’s assessed needs in full or delaying some assessments.
The problem is, even before this new Bill was recently drawn up social services were not meeting everyone’s assessed needs, and they certainly didn’t meet my son’s needs as a person on 117 aftercare in 2013. This is when a social worker who didn’t know my son trundled in and completed a care cutting mission that had to be overturned by an Ombudsman.
Only recently, and at my son’s meeting at the beginning of the month, a new allocation had been made especially for the task of assessment, but later reverted to her suggestion to plan B… a review. Having first taken issue at the actual meeting of ‘needing to reassess’ and also blame-mongering, in my direction. Also, she then cancelled an arranged meeting ‘to do it’ the week after. Before orders were given by her department to cancel face to face meetings, on her next arrangement.
At my son’s meeting, this allocation asked why my son needed a ratio of 2:1 care. A pretty ignorant question considering the history of my son’s case. But then what could I have ever expected from a service, who had not long before, issued a statement to the Ombudsman “that my son’s seizures are behavioral…and not part of his epilepsy”.
To be fair, how can I trust social services to do a proper assessment or review anyway, after that.
Unfortunately, the new allocation had to cancel her next arrangement. However, she offered no other way or means to start the process, she had indeed more than demanded…with menace, as it goes…demanding deadlines, etc., and since that time the coronavirus Bill has been passed giving even more cop-out than ever before.
And here are some more from the same.
temporarily relax local authorities’ duties in relation to their duties to conduct a needs assessment and prepare an adult carer support plan/young care statement under the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968, the Children (Scotland) Act 1995, the Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013 and the Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 to enable them to prioritise people with the greatest needs
I don’t know about this being a new thing, as social services never did prepare or administer any adult carer support plan my way…in the entire time, carer’s assessments have been around. Now they have a license to practice not having the duty…which is what they were doing before.
Even the Ombudsman, overlooked the process not once but several times. Particularly, during the past over 3 years and that was long before this Coronavirus Bill came along and long before Corona even evolved.
To think these organisations are allowed the liberty to just delay and not consider now really pushes limits for many, soon to be victims of the new Bill.
Many carers who are classified as ‘informal’ are going to suffer from the discriminatory practice which has been in place, to single out to people like me, only to be able to access a very degrading ‘lack of support’. For me and my son this practice even before the recent Bill, has gone on and already been practiced, for decades already and not years. This is my personal experience and opinion and one I have personally endured.
What has actually been put in place, is unreasonable extra concerns for unpaid and informal carers. To add to it nothing has been put in place to assist those caring unpaid for very challenging care responsibilities. If anything, we are totally alone during this crisis. Inconsidered and invisible which is nothing new.
Right now many informal carers are suffering and very much being overlooked by society as a whole. Those who are informal carers are generally being left in a boat without a paddle. Need is not being considered other than the needs of a small group of people shielded by the Government.
Most of the rest of the army of carers and their caree’s are thrown to the dogs. Many are trapped in their situations and can’t get out either and there are those at the mercy of services who have been given the right to deny help/or delay it. That is definitely not okay.
Right now even the so-called ‘citizen’s voice’ (the Council’s complaints service) are using this crisis…to delay complaints sent to them in 2019.
By the way, I have enormous respect for frontline workers who work tirelessly in this coronavirus crisis. I do think they deserve the recognition they are getting.