Yesterday I was sent a link to this blogpost by Lucy at The Small Places. I highly recommend everyone involved in social care read this post. It is written by someone who uses and needs support that is provided by the local authority, however their services have been, are being cut significantly.
The narrowing of the eligibility criteria isn’t a ‘paper cut’ made in an office within accounting departments of local authorities, it has a harsh and detrimental effect on the day to day quality of life of another human being who is dependent on the way that provisions are allocated. These are the choices that have been and are being made in the context of cuts and these are the people, actually, we are all the people that Burstow has to justify himself to when he talks about no money being taken out of social care budgets.
The author of the blogpost explains
Yesterday, my care plan was reviewed, and despite the social worker agreeing that I have substantial ‘needs’, to every question that I answered regarding what my carers do for me, the reply was: ‘we don’t fund that any more’. So from now on, no one is allowed to do: laundry, from putting into the washer, putting on a ceiling clothes rail, ironing and putting away…
no shopping allowed or putting it away; paying bills or doing any post office visits; carers aren’t allowed to accompany you out any more either socially, or to hospital/doctors/dentist/opticians or other practical appointments where you need someone to propel your wheelchair; they can’t put the bins out; can’t stack or empty the dishwasher or do any kind of clearing up whatsoever: the list goes on and on. All of the things that I cannot do for myself.Just about anything you can think of that a healthy person would do in the home or outside the home on a day-to-day/week-to-week basis is no longer allowed.
I recognise this. From the ‘other side’ so to speak. I have been, I am, that social worker (well, not in literal terms) but I have to explain that we no longer provide hot meals delivery, we can’t count time for someone to be taken to medical appointments, we deprive people of assistance for some of the tasks we, ourselves, take for granted.
There has always been an issue of resourcing with some user groups benefiting more than others. In older adults services, for example, it was always rare to allow carers time to accompany service users to go to the shops – however, wasn’t the new and wonderful era of personalisation and choice supposed to change this?
We are now able to offer the choice between the hours (and money) spent on someone helping with a bath and use it instead to go out for an hour to the shops. Not necessarily a palatable choice we would expect for ourselves, is it?
The author of the post goes on
I am supposed to have everything delivered now, but they don’t understand the costs of that. Fresh food (and I say that in the loosest sense since they mostly send you stuff that’s about to go out of date), in terms of fruit for example does not last a whole week; you’re lucky if it’s a few days. I can’t eat processed food because I also have IBS. So I’ll have to do an internet shop twice a week which will cost £8 delivery and I will also have to spend a minimum of £25 per shop, that means my four weekly food bill would be £240: I cannot possibly afford that. And since no one is allowed to put it away, what do I do with it when it arrives?
Cost transfers from local authority to user and is the ‘personal budget’ supposed to allow for this? You’d think so. This was one of the more baffling parts of the post
Ah, now the very helpful social worker had a suggestion for all of this: I can use my D.L.A. to employ someone to do all of the other things now and pay for any transport needs! That’s what D.L.A. is for isn’t it? As I replied however, I pay ALL of the care element and part of my severe disability element back to the local authority for my care, so how can I use that?
Well, exactly. Disability Living Allowance (or Attendance Allowance for over 65s) is non-means tested however it is counted in terms of assessments for charges so there is an expectation in the finance departments within Local Authorities. This allowance is seen by the local authority as a legitimate target for charges to be recouped back to the Local Authority for the costs of care – and to be honest, I can see the point. These benefits (at least, the care component) are paid because there are care needs specifically. However for the social worker to lack this information is no doubt rubbing salt into the wound of cuts. The social worker sounds to have been put in a difficult position and I know the feeling. We are tasked to pass the news of cuts to those who can least afford it and who rely most heavily on the provision of services – but it’s a duty to give fair and honest advice at this point.
It does make it clear though that ‘better information’ and shiny web sites providing directories of services or new ‘Trip Advisor’ type sites rating services are all very well and good but the real thing that social care needs is funds to meet basic needs. The focus needs to be on quality of life not ‘how much can we slice off budgets’. There no easy answer but being disingenuous about the nature of ‘choice’ available and being honest about the realities of decisions being made is significant.
This post speaks the truth of many others who cannot speak up – and this is someone who has been able to use a direct payment positively. There are many many more who haven’t.
As a social worker this post spoke the realities I see every day and highlights the benefits of social media to improve my personal practice – it shows me how social workers are perceived with an honesty I rarely get in terms of feedback on a day to day basis due to the power differentials which exist. I hope I don’t respond to people in the way that social worker did but I will be more aware of my responses and how they are interpreted when I am in people’s homes.
And I will continue to fight against the cuts agenda all the harder. We have a powerful collective voice as social workers and we have to use it to tell the stories that we say, to not passively accept some of the hardships and injustices we see on a daily basis.
We can and must do so much better.