On Thursday 4 July 2019, the House of Lords Select Committee acknowledged something, that those of us who practice in the area of Social Care Law already know; social care funding is grossly unfair. In the same month, David Steene at Steene Law won £180,000 for one of the 850000 people paying for care for a loved one with Dementia. So why do we have to go to these legal farces to address this unfair funding?
This man, who was under 50 and suffering from a fairly aggressive form of dementia, was still living an active life and had a young family, but was told by Social Services that all that could be offered was a place in a residential nursing home where the average age of the other residents was 83.
As a consequence, the family endeavoured to keep their loved one at home and so the partner/carer has given up work and thus ceased to pay tax and is, instead, relying upon the State to pay benefits for her to stay at home to look after her family member.
Thankfully, having approached Steene Law, our client has now taken on the fight of trying to obtain Continuing Health Care based upon the very challenging behaviour of their family member.
The irony of this situation, some might say, is that this person had been very careful with what they had eaten, led an active life, and was not affected by conditions, such as diabetes or heart disease. However, had he had these conditions he would have had some of the best care from the NHS, regardless of how much he earned or how much tax or national insurance he had paid.
It is incredible that so many families find themselves in this situation and are so poorly informed by social services of what is on offer to them.
At Steene Law, it is not uncommon to see families having to spend up to half a million pounds to pay for care. In most cases, we can make a successful argument that secures them the Continuing Health Care they require, but this is just a drop in the ocean compared to those who have long-term care needs.
A report produced by the committee, stated: “People receive health care free at the point of use but are expected to make a substantial personal contribution towards social care. In addition, national funding for social care is distributed unequally across Local Authorities”.
In answer to that Steene Law say “Fixing funding is not difficult- the Government needs to spend £8 billion now!”
£8 billion is a number that most of us cannot comprehend, however, let us try and put that number in terms we can all understand by looking at the human impact of the Government’s inaction over social care.
850,000 people in the UK already have dementia and in the next two years a further 150,000 people are likely to be diagnosed. That’s another 150,000 families whose lives will be changed forever, whose plans for retirement after a lifetime of work are about to change, and not for the better.
Most people first come into contact with social services following diagnosis and they are told, often on the first meeting, that a lifetime of paying tax means absolutely nothing. If you require social care, you will have to pay for it, the State pays nothing – unless of course your capital and income is below £23,250.
The result of this is that the vast majority of people with dementia are supported by family members acting as carers, who often spend their nights supporting people who can no longer differentiate between day and night. This is all due to the unfairness in obtaining Continuing Health Care, despite having spent a lifetime paying taxes that they thought would support them.
These inequalities cut across class, gender, sexual orientation or race – dementia has no respect for either age or education. Unless you are extremely wealthy, the costs of care are beyond the means of most and mean that other assets, such as homes, will have to be sold to meet the costs of care. The inequality in the care system is incredible. Whereas health care is free on delivery, as it has been paid for by our taxes, social care is means-tested.
This is a historic position, reached after the end of the Second World War and the introduction of the NHS, but in the 21st century, it is unacceptable that the Government is not prepared to tackle these inequalities – even when its own second house highlights and criticises them.
We know that we have already paid for our care when we go into hospital, however, people who have had a dementia diagnosis are often forced to give away their entire life savings, home and their children’s inheritance for the care they need.
In evidence given to the House of Lords Select Committee by Dominic Carter of Alzheimer’s UK, he stated that £100,000 to pay for care is not unusual.
It was pointed out that even when you can afford care, the quality of dementia care is dreadful. One-fifth of residential care homes that are registered to accept dementia patients are rated by the CQC as failing. NHS funding should be available now and should not force people to go through a ridiculous two-stage process of the so-called Checklist and then the Decision Support Tool (DST).
What is not spoken about is there are people who, like the family we spoke to recently, were told that they did not qualify for Continuing Health Care (incorrectly).
It is imperative that the current Government gives equal priority to sorting out a commission that once and for all aligns social care, which is subject to means testing, with NHS care, so that we do not have to speak to people who have been without sleep and face an unpleasant future.
WE ALL DESERVE TO LIVE IN A SOCIETY BETTER THAN THIS….
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