Some welcome proposals, though I’m bracing myself for a long hard slog
by Liz
Any of us who have tried to enforce our rights under adult social care law know that it is hideously complicated. So, in 2009, when the Government announced a review of it, with a view to developing a new legal framework for adult social care, I was both pleased by the promise of greater simplicity and scared by the thought of what was at stake.
Last Wednesday, when the Law Commission published its recommendations, I was eager, if a little nervous, to see what is being proposed.
One welcome proposal is that deafblind people’s right to a specialist assessment should be elevated from guidance to regulations. After one assessment that was not carried out by a specialist, I was offered a talking book machine, because that’s what blind people need, and a list of lipreading classes, because that’s what deafened people need, with no consideration that both were useless to me as a profoundly deafblind person. A strengthened right to a specialist assessment has to be a good thing.
I was pleased to see that the Law Commission suggests that the purpose of adult social care is “promoting or contributing to the well-being of the individual” and that well-being should be directed towards a range of outcomes including
- health and emotional well-being
- protection from harm
- education, training and recreation
- the contribution made to society
- securing rights and entitlements.
In other words, it is made clear that social care is about more than personal care; it should enable us to have some quality of life. Without social care, in the form of a suitably skilled communicator guide, I am a prisoner in my own home and, under the proposals, that would not be acceptable.
The Law Commission make 76 recommendations in a document that exceeds 200 pages. Some of the recommendations I strongly support, some concern me a little and some, at this stage, I am indifferent to. No doubt I will have much more to say once I have had time to digest the document.
The biggest thought in my mind now, though, is that this is only the start of the process. Next, the Government needs to consider the proposals, along with those that will be made by the commission on funding of adult social care, and put forward a new adult social care bill.
That worries me as, in my personal opinion, the Government has demonstrated precious little understanding of the needs of disabled people or of the support we need.
Then, once a new law is passed, local authorities will need to implement it. I am all too used to battling against the devious, spurious and bizarre excuses local authorities use for not providing what they should. I’m bracing myself for a long hard slog but in the end I hope that we will have a social care system that provides deafblind people with the support we need.
Walk with Me, Talk with Me - our campaign on adult social care
Originally published in May 2011
Comments
Kevin
19 August 2012 - 5:06pm
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I hope that reform of the social care system will not be about cutting the cost and further restricting entitlement. The Government is using reform of welfare benefits to do just that and I fear they will do the same with social care. We must brace ourselves for a long hard slog to try to get a better system but, in the end, what we will probably have to brace ourselves for is less support and lives that are so limited that they are not worth living, trapped in our homes with no contact with the outside world.
Chris Hughes
19 August 2012 - 5:10pm
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I too am tired of the same old excuses that government make re the essentials that deafblind people require to make their lives more comfortable. I am at present in the middle of the second round with my local authorities trying to get a communicator guide. The authorities will fob you off with all sorts of excuses but the crux of the matter is that the people who really need their help are suffering and they do little or nothing to help them in their position of a caring job. Little care going on there, I too said to my outreach worker that I felt like a prisoner in my own home, there is so much we as people could be doing if they supplied as our rights, but no as usual they close there ears to our cries of 'help' and 'please'. We must always fight for what is rightly ours and we shouldn’t have to, but in my experience things are never easy or that simple. So on with the fight.
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