The suspension of care home inspections
For an excellent paper by Alison Tarrant and Lydia Hayes concerning the suspension of routine inspections which they argue renders care homes invisible to scrutiny and costs lives – click…
Read more
Category: what’s-new
Magic wands, misdirection and shock
Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine may have its critics – but it is difficult not to think about it, at times like this. Her central argument is that governments use national…
Read more
Undermining children’s safeguarding duties
Major changes to the law concerning the protection of looked after children (among other things) have been brought into effect via the Adoption and Children (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2020. Article…
Read more
Social Justice another coronavirus casualty
What do you do if a local authority or NHS body decides to stop processing all complaints – even complaints which relate to matters of life and death or another…
Read more
Coronavirus: Direct Payments & Personal Health Budgets
Some welcome guidance from the Department of Health and Social Care concerning local authority and NHS decisions about permissible use of Direct Payment and Personal Health Budgets during the emergency.…
Read more
Coronavirus update
More Chinese whispers and some guidance concerning disabled children and their families. Chinese whispers first. In a recent post I referred to emails from Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) saying that…
Read more
Chinese whispers, NHS Complaints & Covid-19
It seems that people who have outstanding NHS complaints are getting letters from Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) stating – for example: Due to the ongoing COVID19 pandemic NHS England and…
Read more
Coronavirus Act threatens care for disabled people
A Position Statement from the Disability Law Service & Professor Luke Clements. Disabled children, disabled adults & carers need special protection in a time of crisis. The last decade of…
Read more
The Coronavirus Act 2020
Updated 1 July 2020. This briefing considers: 1. The main provisions of the Act – this section briefly describes these as they apply to social care in England and Wales…
Read more
Coronavirus Bill Impact assessment.
My good colleague Steve Brett has drawn to my attention the Impact Assessment for the Coronavirus Bill produced by the Department of Health and Social Care. It is an important…
Read more
The Coronavirus Bill and the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939.
When trying to make sense of the Coronavirus Bill – we should keep in mind the dissenting opinion of Lord Atkin in Liversidge v Anderson [1942] AC 206. It was…
Read more
The Coronavirus Bill, social care & SEN
The Government has published the Coronavirus Bill. It is the most draconian legislation enacted since the Second World War and suspends a whole raft of legislative duties – not…
Read more
Disabled children, their carers and Coronavirus
During the current emergency we must not allow disabled young people and their carers to be pushed to the back of the health and social care queue. A campaign has…
Read more
Is ‘indignation’ old fashioned?
“Mrs X is a disabled pensioner who lives alone in rented accommodation. She was born with cerebral palsy, has no sight in one eye and has had two strokes. She…
Read more
No such word as ‘can’t’
All too often disabled people and families are told that a local authority can’t meet a particular support need because (for example) it can’t find anyone (or any organisation) willing…
Read more
The Queen’s Speech
Social care reform “My ministers will seek cross-party consensus on proposals for long term reform of social care. They will ensure that the social care system provides everyone with the…
Read more
NHS Personal Health Budgets: new rights and new guidance
NHS England has issued new guidance to coincide with the extension[1] of the right to a Personal Health Budget (PHB) to cover people eligible for section 117 Mental Health Act…
Read more
NHS Continuing Healthcare statistics
The latest NHS CHC statistics for England show a small increase in overall numbers of people eligible for funding – up from 55,872 at the end of June to 57,016…
Read more
Unacceptable delay:
Complaints procedures for disabled children and their families The Cerebra Legal Entitlements and Problem-Solving (LEaP) Research Project at Leeds University has published a report concerning serious (and systemic) failings in…
Read more
Anniversary quotes
Two quotes: one published a year ago and the other 175 years ago. 14 million people, a fifth of the population, live in poverty. Four million of these are more…
Read more
Unfortunately … there is no legal footing to justify us not funding
R (CP) v. NE Lincolnshire Council[1] is an important Court of Appeal decision. On one level the judgment demonstrates the complexity of the care / education arrangements for young…
Read more
Under 5’s school transport
An excellent report[1] from the ombudsman concerning the legal obligations on a council to provide transport for a disabled child below statutory school age. The report provides a helpful statement…
Read more
Education Committee Report on SEND
The House of Commons Education Committee published its report on 'Special educational needs and disabilities' on 23rd October 2019. It doesn’t pull its punches and we must all hope that…
Read more
Post-16 students and free school / college travel assistance
A further ombudsman's report concerning the duty to provide free travel assistance to school / colleges etc has just been published.[1] A March 2019 ombudsman's report[2] concerning the same Council…
Read more
So what do you do?
You are a health / social care professional. You have read up on the lawfulness of funding panels – but you now find yourself required to attend a panel to…
Read more
Direct Payments for Young People
A survey of 52 social services authorities found that rates of pay for Personal Assistants (PAs) were very low, typically at minimum wage rates. The report concludes that in many…
Read more
‘Omg … will it never end’
It is not every day that an ombudsman’s report refers to an investigator’s note saying the above. Not every day that the ombudsman: asks a council to reflect on its…
Read more
Pre-payment cards and direct payments
Think Local Act Personal (TLAP) has published guidance concerning the use by local authorities of pre-payment cards for direct payments / personal budgets. TLAP describes itself as a ‘national partnership’…
Read more
Charges for community care
For many disabled people the cut backs in social care support have been accompanied by steep increases in local authority charges[1] exacerbated by the freezing of threshold allowances for the…
Read more
DWP and MoJ unlawful inaction
Legal research by the International Disability Law Clinic at the School of Law, Leeds University concludes that the Government’s policy of not installing audio recording equipment for all Personal Independence…
Read more
Disabled Facilities Grants (DFGs) and social care responsibilities
An important ombudsman report[1] has just been published that reaffirms that: social services authorities have duties under the Care Act 2014 to ensure that necessary home adaptations are provided and…
Read more
Extra care housing: ‘just in time’ systems are for cars not care
Extra care housing is a good idea. In practice however it looks to be failing all but the wealthy. This ‘post’ describes the idea behind extra care housing schemes and…
Read more
Post-19 education transport costs
In a recent and important report,[1] the ombudsman has held that the transport needs of an adult in education are relevant considerations when assessing his (and his carer’s) social care…
Read more
NHS Continuing Healthcare (CHC) and transitions into adulthood
Young people who are receiving NHS Continuing Care (and their families) are inevitably anxious to know what their care and support arrangements will be once they become 18. Not infrequently…
Read more
NHS CHC and supine council leaders
The number of people eligible for NHS Continuing Healthcare funding (CHC) in England has fallen – again. The most recent figures[1] have just been published and show that in the…
Read more
Staying in a care home when savings spent
What can be done when a resident, who has self funded their care home runs out of money: having spent their savings on paying for their care home? Although councils…
Read more
Can you cope?
It’s a simple question – yes or no? If you are a parent of a disabled child – it is a question, when asked by a social worker, that you…
Read more
Elaine McDonald
It is reported that Elaine McDonald has died. She was by all accounts an extraordinary person and I hope she is remembered for this and her brilliance as a ballerina. …
Read more
Personal Budgets: the tail and the dog
The law is clear: a disabled or older person’s eligible needs must be met, either by the council arranging the services or by providing a direct payment sufficient to enable…
Read more
The charging regulations and injustice
A guest ‘post’ by Brian Collinge, a former local authority Chief Executive and father of a son who has severe learning disabilities. Brian identifies a major injustice experienced by disabled…
Read more
Is Britain Fairer? No.
Disabled people … are finding themselves increasingly excluded from mainstream society, starting in education and continuing later in life. …. . Disabled people are more likely to be in poverty,…
Read more
Continuing Health Care Funding and End of Life Care
Opening address to the Association of Palliative Care Social Workers Tackling Poverty in Palliative Care Conference York University 13th September 2018. One of our greatest achievements as a nation…
Read more
Families with severely disabled children should not have to live like this.
A report by the ombudsman[i] contains the above quote (said by the disabled child’s mother). The report relates to a council’s failure (for over 3 years) to provide essential home…
Read more
Improving Flexible Working Rights for Carers
A ‘What’s New’ post contributed by David Laurence and Samson Dawodu of the Disability Law Service. Those who care for disabled people should be entitled to reasonable adjustments in…
Read more
Disabled Facilities Grants and young people in England
Local authorities have statutory obligations to pay grants to facilitate access to homes by disabled occupants as well as to make them safe for the disabled person and those they…
Read more
The Misuse by local authorities of their ‘protection’ powers
Some disabled people and their families have had negative experiences of the way their local authority or local NHS body behave. In some cases this behaviour feels oppressive and sometimes…
Read more
Pet care costs and social care charges
For those of us concerned about the high level of local authority charges as well as those sceptical of about the ‘personal budgets’ agenda this is an interesting piece of…
Read more
The accessibility of Disabled Facilities Grant application forms
What can a cash strapped local authority do if the law requires that a grant be paid within 12 months of an application? It appears that about half have decided…
Read more
Another fall in NHS Continuing Care (CHC) numbers
The CHC figures for the last quarter of 2017-18 have been released.[1] They show that in April 2018 the total number of people eligible for NHS CHC in England stood…
Read more
Difficult questions require a ‘plan’: ‘transitions’ as an example.
Robert Graves’ in his autobiography ‘Goodbye to All That’ describes how he, his wife and their small children were in urgent need of a house to rent in Oxfordshire –…
Read more