Tag Archives: social care
Service users to gain right to independent advocacy through Care Bill
Government amendment would provide right to advocacy when a person needed substantial support in understanding information during care management or safeguarding processes and had no one else to support them.
The Care Bill returns to Parliament next week
Service users and carers would gain a right to an independent advocate to help them participate in the assessment, support planning or safeguarding process under a government amendment to the Care Bill.
The provision would apply if the person would experience substantial difficulty in understanding, retaining or weighing up relevant information, or in communicating their wishes, and they had no family member or friend to speak up for them.
The amendment – which will be moved by minister Earl Howe when the bill returns to the House of Lords next week – has been strongly welcomed by advocacy leaders, who have campaigned strongly for such a provision.
Norfolk County Council’s social care cuts will hit elderly and disabled
Norfolk County Council’s proposed social care spending cuts will hit the most vulnerable, including the elderly.
Dan Grimmer Monday, September 30, 2013
12:34 PM
But they insist Norfolk County Council has to make ends meet, even if that means some 15,000 people who get care from the council have to see changes to services.
Social care changes are among some of the most major shake-ups proposed in the county council’s consultation to save £140m over the next four years.
Among controversial proposals are suggestions that £12m could be saved over the next three years by limiting what people can spend personal budgets on.
Home care fees rise by up to 160pc as rationing takes hold
Elderly and disabled people who need care in their own homes have been hit with rises of up to 160 per cent in their bills in just five years, new research shows.
7:00AM BST 19 Sep 2013
Home care fees rise by up to 160pc as rationing takes hold Photo: IAN JONES
The number of areas in which the state support for care is available to anyone other than the most frail has also halved in the same period, it discloses.
A study by Which?, the consumer rights group, exposes the full extent to which councils are rationing care as they attempt to absorb major cuts to their budgets.
Based on information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, it discloses that there are now only 12 local authorities in England and Wales still offering care to people whose needs are officially assessed as “moderate”. Five years ago it was able to identify 26 areas where this was still available.
