Care and Support- the conference

[wendy]

Reform of the Care and Support System.
Norwich
3rd November

About 60 people at 12 tables.
On my table were people from The Human Rights, Crossroads, Young People Support from the midlands, Occupational Therapy, and Adaptions in the Home.
Kate Nash, Disability Alliance was in the Chair.
Phil Hope MP  the Minister for Care introduced the meeting and answered questions.
Each table had eight people but we had two people absent from our table.
Norman Lamb MP was on another table and Bill Albert The Chairman of Norfolk Independent Living on another.

Basically  Free Care from "Cradle to the Grave" is going to change.  The government is making
long - term plans.
These meetings have been held across the country before the Green paper next spring is announced to get views from as many people as possible because every adult in England will be affected by these changes.
http://www.careandsupport.direct.gov.uk

I asked a question about the choice of nursing homes to Phil Hope the Minister of Care.   I also was filmed asking a question about a fuel grant for carers.
The whole event was filmed and they said it will be available on their website.
We each had mobile voting phones which enabled us to vote on the debates, and also send in questions by text.

People are living 11 years longer than they did in 1948 when the NHS was introduced.  It is estimated that in 20 years time there will be twice as many 'older' people alive.  The Government estimates that in 2040 the cost for people with disablities will be £40 billion.

Today the cost of keeping one person in a care home amounts to £23,000 a year.

There were many streams of thought, like industry providing creches for older people to go to.
Should the workings for this new system be National or local? 
Ring fencing would be necessary if it was dealt with from the local area and not national.
Child benefit could be a stepping stone to the funding pot for old age.
Equity release.
Education from a young age about not only saving money to be able to go to university, a pension, but parents will need to save for their child's care in old age.
Industry providing care like in Victorian times.

It was agreed that the idea of community and care in society needs to be reassessed and people must become less insular.
Many ideas were put forward and now we have to wait and see what the Government puts through for the Green paper.
My notes for you I tried my best.
Wendy



You can watch a video clip from the tv  Here

[Sam_B]

http://www.carers.org/news/hope-radical ... 97,NW.html

Now is your chance to influence reform of the care and support system.

The government has called on stakeholders and the public to take part in the engagement process ahead of the publication of its adult social care Green Paper.

Sam_B

[wendy]

Sam, I have been at one of the events yesterday and posted the details above.
Wendy

[kenm]

Yet another sham-- pretending to ask the public-- even the blind charities must realise that it is all a sham and they have already made up their minds to screw disabled/sick and carers.
If charity employees were to take enough interest to actually read what goes on in Chill they would realise Wendy has been to one of these non events.

[wendy]

Care services minister Phil Hope (centre) with staff at the Julian Hospital 
SARAH BREALEY

04 November 2008 08:12


Britain is facing a crisis in social care as significant as climate change, a government minister has warned.

There will be a £6bn-a-year shortfall in caring for elderly people in 20 years' time, based on current levels of taxation and a growing elderly population. By 2028 the number of people over 65 in Norfolk will have increased by 57pc, while those over 85 will have increased by 102pc.

The new care services minister, Phil Hope, was in Norwich yesterday as part of a national tour to debate the future of the care system.

He said: “It is an equivalent challenge to climate change. In the same way people want to take a radical approach to tackling climate change, we need a radical reform to address the effects of demographic change.

“If nothing changed there would be a gap of £6bn between the same level of care we provide at the moment and the money we have to pay for it.”

He added: “This is my top priority. It is not going to go away, we have to do something about it.”

The options for dealing with the problem might include drastic increases in taxation, compulsory saving for old age, or shifting more of the burden on to families. Mr Hope said he had not formed any views, adding: “This is the listening stage of the process.”

Mr Hope attended a regional consultation event at the Holiday Inn in north Norwich, for local politicians, NHS representatives and users of social services to give their views.

Media were not allowed into the event, but views expressed by some of the 100-strong audience included concern about different levels of social services-funded care in different parts of the country, and questions about what can be done to fund the service in the long term.

One of those at the event was North Norfolk MP and Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb. He said afterwards: “This is a massive issue. We have got this demographic time bomb, this ageing population and a completely unfair system of funding where people who have worked hard all their lives find they are excluded from help from the state.”

Public sector union Unison and Norwich North MP Ian Gibson are calling for better pay for care workers who may earn no more than the minimum wage. It is estimated in Norfolk there are up to 1,000 people who are employed by private care companies in Norfolk, many of whom get paid much less than public sector staff.

Jonathan Dunning, from Unison, said: “There are care workers in the county who are being paid pretty much the minimum wage. The problem is the county council have contracted out to a number of private companies and they compete for these contracts.”

Dr Gibson said: “To be on a basic minimum wage for this sort of work is outrageous. I am meeting with some carers this week to see what we can do about this problem. It is not fair that if you work for one private company you might get paid the minimum wage while some people in other parts of the country get treble the pay.”

Norfolk County Council said it was renewing the number of tenders for its home care contracts, which could enable providers to reconsider their terms and conditions.

http://new.edp24.co.uk/content/news/sto ... 3A36%3A927

[ians1]

Interestingly they should mentioned Child Benefit almost in the same breathe, maybe they are going to bite that particular bullet, ie Means Testing for Child Benefit........nar, only dreaming, even though it would easily pay for the £6bn projected gap in Social Care it would be easier to  tax the poor more, they complain less and don't realise when they've been shafted like the middle classes would if they took away their CB subsidy for popping out babies...

Couldn't agree more btw Kenm, they listen, they take note, they ignore....

ian

[Jsmum]

Good precis Wendy!

There are several issues this raises for me so I will be happy to respond.

thank you for taking the time to do this on all our behalf.

:)

Nessie x

[wendy]

Thank you for saying that Nessie, I know the outcome from this meeting was not what any of us wanted, but I was beginning to feel that I had made a fool of myself on the day.  I stood up and asked the question in front of over 100 people, I went on video and asked a question, and for what?  Your reactions are anger and hurt.
The meeting was different to anything I had been to before, and I have been to the New Deal meetings.
They made us work our socks off and I am only just recovering.  Everyone there worked very hard.
I am afraid I am as confused as all of you, but all I can say is that I tried my best, but now looking back I don't know how I found the nerve to do it. My hopes are that it did make a difference but as some have already said, who knows. 
So thank you Nessie.
Wendy

[annie]

Wendy, we appreciate all you do & the amount of work you put in on behalf of all carers

[wendy]

Sorry, I was only picking up the anger, which I feel as well by the way, towards the Government.
Take no notice of me, it has been a difficult week.

[chenrezig]

Norwich City Council has already changed care providers as of 2nd Feb 2009 Westminster Homecare have lost the contract, and the new provider will be Careforce Group, we await to see what happens... I have tried checking out the CSCI website and can't find it on there, even though the letter from Norfolk County Council tells us they have a "good rating" with the CSCI. Has anyone else out there heard of them? Checking their own website they don't yet appear to have a Norfolk/Norwich office yet either.

Liz

[graham]

In the current financial climate it is very difficult to see anything ahead which is going to improve the lot of carers or any other group that require some degree of support from the State.......The collapse of the Housing market & an even greater 'stiffening' by the population against ALL increases in ALL taxation will not help matters. To talk of means testing child benefit is something that I thought would only come from some right wing think tank & has no place in our Society. Child Benefit is paid to ALL not just to the middle classes..............What next, I ask myself.......? Means testing of the State Pension......... A ' slippery slope there Ian' & well you know it ! 

[wendy]

I spoke on their  video for fuel grants for carers who are caring for people very ill which means that sometimes they have to have their heating on throughout the summer, never mind the winter.
In tonights paper the Governement is giving a winter fuel grant to cancer sufferers in Norfolk to help them out of fuel poverty.
This is the first step of what I want to happen.
I will try and find the article for you on the internet, unless someone else can find it.
Yipppeeeeeee

http://www.macmillan.org.uk

[Jsmum]

Hahaha!  You havent seen my other reply yet!

My emotions towards this Government are many and complex - none of them positive.

Frustration at being left so impotent and unable to control serious events that are affecting my life and my son's life.

Anger at being treated in such a discriminatory way.  Why should my son have to suffer pain every day because some idiot in Government placed us 5 years ago in accommodation that was patently unsuitable?  Why refuse to allow him to even leave his own home because the funding cannot be found to provide him with a pathway to the road?  

Dismay at the Job Centre Disability Advisor who sat in my home the other day and told me about how she had just got a degree paid for by the Government to top up her training but my 18 year old is being refused a place a special blind college 100 miles away which would give him the independent living skills he needs to feed, clothe, wash and maintain a home, and get a job.  Why?  Because he is TOO disabled.

So let me get this right, MY son, who was damaged by a Government vaccine programme when he was a baby, leaving him autistic, with severe learning difficulties, physical disabilities on a par with cerebral palsy, is too disabled to attend a special needs training college for the blind, but not disabled enough to get a grant to enable him to leave his home in his wheelchair.

Damn right Im angry!

Im sure you are too!

These injustices have got to stop.  It seems disability is the new black.  God forbid we insult a person of colour or Eastern religious persuasion but you can look a disabled person in the face and say with a derisory sneer "well you don't look disabled to me!".

Its as bad as the N word in my book and just as discriminatory.

Why, when you have worked for the best part of a year to gather the evidence of your disability, been assessed by doctors, signed off by therapists, all to get a piece of paper signed that entitles you to more money, are you then to prove again and again your disability or your carers status for further benefits?  Yet this self-same piece of paper is the only "proof" of disability you have.

Councils all over the country now refuse to follow the Disabled Persons Registration Act 1948 which has never been repealed.  They REFUSE to register disabled people even though the law says they must do so.  Why?  For the very reasons the other commenters on your post raise.  If people were registered then we know EXACTLY how many disabled people there are and how many carers.  And those people would be entitled to help under law which we are currently denied.

I am SAD that after fighting ELEVEN tribunals including a high court case - the Council still says that a disabled child has no legal right to an Education under English law.  

Please, feel free to submit these comments to the Government.  They won't listen.

Ive tried and tried and tried.

Nessie x

[wendy]

Liz, when I tried their website, it is not working.
If I was you I would ring the free phone helpline and ask what is going on.
Wendy

[kenm]

Liz---I have looked up the Careforce Group and can find no branch in Norfolk. They have branches just about everywhere else- maybe they are just expanding into your area.

[maureenho]

Liz, the same thing has happened to the Agency my mum receives care from in Norwich, but in that particular case the Agencies carer's have been given the option of transfering to Careforce from 2nd February, so I think the one she have now is going under.

Norwich City Council has already changed care providers as of 2nd Feb 2009 Westminster Homecare have lost the contract, and the new provider will be Careforce Group

Mo

[LizC]

Wendy, you did brilliantly to put your views forward and to represent so many people on this board.

I'm not a carer but came across you and your great forum two years ago after my mother had a series of strokes, she is now in a nursing home.

One of the biggest problems is that because of the nature of what they do, carers are working (if that's the right word) in isolation. This is where your website forum is so useful because it gives people who may not have the chance to get together with others in person, the opportunity to put views forward in an organised way.

LizC

[wendy]

Jsmum.
I am sorry to read your post, now you have a chance to let them know.
Get your thoughts in soon before the Green paper is finalised.  I can well see how you are angry.
Good luck.
Wendy

[Jsmum]

Wendy

Honestly?  I was right where you have just been in 2004.  I, along with 60 other parents just like yourself addressed a House of Lords Select Committee with Baroness Warnock.  She presented her report to Parliament in January 2005. Did anything change?

Did it 'eck!  Its got worse!

I have arranged marches, petitions, I have written letters to MPs, I have fought them in court and what did it get me or my son?  More trouble.

Its lip service.  You watch.  Nothing will happen.  Oh they will have meetings and put together papers and reports.  All this will take time, first six months, then a year, then they will ask for another meeting and another "consultation process" and at the end of it what will you have?

Sorry to say - nothing.

The discrimination will continue and people will continue to live and die in misery when they should be helped.

They are all perfidious, duplicitous beaurocrats.  They certainly have no interest now in helping carers or the disabled.  They probably only bothered to turn up because of their expenses and the fact that it was in the diary.

Sorry Wendy.

Im so tired.

Nessie x

[wendy]

I got no expenses for going to the event, I got nothing at all.
We are all tired, tired of the way we are treated.  But something has already changed maybe nothing to do with this meeting or what I said to the three ministers, but there is going to be a fuel payment for cancer sufferers in Norfolk.  A small change but not small for the people involved.
Yes, we are all very very angry and I will not shut up about the fuel poverty for carers.
Wendy

[Jsmum]

Not your expenses Wendy!  The bloomin' ministers! 

You deserve every penny.

Keep up the good work babes - baby steps and all that.

Nessie x

[ians1]

The discrimination will continue and people will continue to live and die in misery when they should be helped.

I could not agree more Nessie, but bear in mind its taken over 40 years for some kinds of discrimination to finally get one foot in the grave, I am thinking about Mr Obama.

Its very likely going to be a long struggle, and the efforts of people like yourself and Wendy do not go  unnoticed, so don't stop now.

For one thing there should definitely be a separate Carers Discrimination Bill brought before Parliament, we should not allow ourselves to be lumped in with the General Equality Bill,  just as we won't be called "Jobseekers".

My observations re Child Benefit were only because it was mentioned elsewhere, it was not my idea personally, I was merely illustrating the likelihood of Civil War if it were Means Tested, although raising taxes to pay for increased/replacement care services is just as likely to be unpopular in the light of the looming major recession.  My point was the Government of the day will always opt for the line of least resistance when it comes to taxes, petrol, electricity, kids sweeties, home insurance, in fact any more stealth taxes they can think of on anything that they think nobody will complain about.

Keep up the good work btw Wendy.

ian

[Jsmum]

Ian

You are absolutely right.  A carer's discrimination bill is what is needed.  Carers are not, as you say, jobseekers on the open market.  We work full time 24/7.  I think here is no other "job" that works longer hours than we do - not even doctors!

Nessie x

[ians1]

The connected debate about the upcoming (Scottish) Patients Rights Bill throws up some interesting things supposedly derived from this kind of "consultation" in this extract from a recent SP debate:-

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/sp/?id=20 ... s#g12091.2

he consultation's constant theme is the detailing of patients' rights, accompanying that are stated patients' responsibilities.

Under "Access", it states:

"Patients will be responsible for:

    * attending agreed appointments."

Under "Respect", it states:

"Patients will be responsible for:

    * treating staff with dignity and respect; and
    * not physically or verbally abusing staff."

Under "Safety", it states:

"Patients will be responsible for:

    * complying with advice on medication and treatment; and
    * raising legitimate concerns about the safety of their care."

Under "Communication", it states:

"Patients will be responsible for:

    * providing information about their history, current treatment medication and alternative therapies directly or through their family, carer or other nominated supporter;
    * informing their healthcare provider of any changes in their condition; and
    * taking part actively and constructively in discussion and decisions about their health and health care."

Under "Information", it states:

"Patients will be responsible for:

    * seeking and using information appropriately to support their own health, for example to enable self-care for minor conditions; and
    * ensuring that they have the information to understand what they need to know about their care, and to provide consent to treatment."

Under "Participation", it states:

"Patients will be responsible for

    * asking for further information if there is any uncertainty about their care;
    * giving informed consent or not; and
    * participating constructively in decisions about healthcare and service where they wish to do so."

Under "Privacy", it states:

"Patients will be responsible for:

    * providing the information that is appropriate and relevant to treatment of their condition."

Under "Independent Support and Redress", it states:

"Patients will be responsible for:

    * offering feedback on their health services in a positive way as far as possible."

I quoted those responsibilities at length simply to illustrate that, if we strip out the rights, we are left with the most comprehensive and stringent set of patients' responsibilities—indeed, we are left with a pretty draconian patients' responsibilities bill

I have noted regularly in recent debates that the NHS is not an insurance policy in the normal sense. I have talked about leaving the house doors and windows open, being burgled and then finding that the insurance company is not inclined to pay. I have noted that, in the final analysis, no penalty exists within the NHS, so I suppose that I should welcome the responsibilities, but what do they mean? If a patient does not follow

"advice about ... suggested lifestyle changes",

fails to provide "information about their history" or is unable to provide knowingly

"information that is appropriate and relevant to treatment of their condition",

what will happen? How will that be reconciled with the desire to tackle inequalities? Will the patient be sued by the health board or denied further NHS treatment? Will there be a new sanction in law? That is surely inconceivable, but if there is not, what will be the legal and practical purpose of a bill that seeks to establish legal frameworks? In contrast, the existing charters can be updated without the need for primary legislation.

The bit highlighted particularly caught my attention, as it seems these "consultations" could be being used as a way of railroading patients and Carers into something quite terrible.

Remember, this is supposed to be a Patients "Rights" Bill!

ian