Category Archives: ukcuts

Respite cuts leave parents of disabled children across Norfolk ‘in tears’

Parents of youngsters with profound disabilities are protesting against changes in the way residential short breaks are allocated, which they say have taken away a “lifeline” and left some of them with 50pc fewer respite hours or, in some cases, no residential respite at all.

Sarah Dewhurst with 14-year-old Alice, who has profound and multiple disabilities. Picture: KAREN BETHELL

In March of this year, council chiefs announced changes affecting up to 1,000 Norfolk youngsters.

These meant that the £1.7m budget for disabled children would need to be used for more children, with each family allocated cash to pay for activities according to a point-scoring system.

But, while the council said these changes would not affect residential short breaks, parents claim they have been left “devastated” by the drastic cuts in the number of hours respite they have been allocated.

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This social care crisis is hitting very close to home

I’ll never have to worry about social care for my mum. But it’s another story for her mother – my grandma.

A couple of years before mum was diagnosed, she and my dad took the decision to bring my widowed grandma down from Middlesbrough to live with them.

Obviously my parents did not factor in that one of them might not be around to look after her. Some of the final months of my mum’s life were spent worrying about where her mother would live once she was gone.

When mum died, my father tried again to get grandma, who will be 100 in four years, into residential care. We were told she could go on the waiting list for a care home.

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West Norfolk councillor demands government help for ‘retirement’ county

Alexandra Kemp

A West Norfolk councillor has called for greater government support to meet the costs of providing care for the county’s elderly population.

Norfolk County Council is due to set its budget for the forthcoming financial year on Monday, including plans for a near five per cent rise in council tax.
But, although most of that would go towards adult social care if implemented, critics say even greater funding is needed. And Clenchwarton and Lynn South representative Alexandra Kemp has written to the communities secretary, Sajid Javid, to demand extra support.

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