If your loved one is struggling to obtain a decent standard of social care, we tell you what you can do about it NOW
When Boris Johnson stood on the steps of Number 10 Downing Street, he promised the nation he would fix the crisis in social care once and for all.
He pledged, on the first day that he became Prime Minister, to make fundamental improvements to social care. He even hinted that he had plans already up his sleeve, ready to go.
“and so I am announcing now – on the steps of Downing Street – that we will fix the crisis in social care once and for all with a clear plan we have prepared”.
Fast forward almost eight months and you might be wondering what progress has been made?
The hard truth is that, so far, all the Government has managed to do is to send a letter to MPs and peers asking for their views on the issue.
Here at Steene Law, we feel this is an unforgivably slow response to a national crisis which continues to affect the most vulnerable members of society.
These are people have worked hard all their lives and have paid their taxes, and yet, in their hour of need they are being badly let down.
They have often scrimped and saved to put a little money aside. But this means they are now termed self-funders, meaning they will have to foot the cost of ALL their social care.
And if they have no savings and are reliant on the state, all too often they are pushed into accepting ‘cheap and not so cheerful’ care homes, funded by their local authority.
The cynical amongst us, may shake our heads and mutter about ‘yet more broken promises and hot air from our politicians.’
But, while we wait for our Government to turn words into actions, there is something you can do right here and now, today, to ensure that your loved one receives the level of social care they are entitled to.
At Steene Law, we have an arsenal of legal tools to sort out social care funding, that is not reliant on the Government to sort out the problem, which is available NOW.
Here are just a few examples of how we have helped clients recently:
- Mrs M. was told by her local authority that they would not fund her care fees. They claimed deliberate deprivation of assets. Steene Law got involved and we successfully persuaded the local authority that this was not the case. We also managed to help Mrs M move to a far nicer care home than the local authority had initially offered her.
- Ms A was struggling to cope with the caring for her mum at home. The team at Steene Law were able to access medical records which proved that, due to a rule known as Section 117 of the Mental Health Act, the NHS were required to pick up the cost of ALL care. Mrs A’s mum is now being cared for in a residential home which is able to fully meet her complex needs.
- Continuing Health Care Appeals – just this week, we challenged three separate Clinical Commissioning – the local bodies who hold the purse strings when granting CHC.
- We helped Ms G, who had put a large part of her life on hold, giving up her job and her own flat, to help care for her mum and dad. When Ms G’s dad passed away, the local authority wanted to include the value of mum’s house in a financial assessment. We successfully fought, using the Property Disregard laws, for the £650,000 family home to be disregarded, meaning that mum did not have to sell the home to pay for her care.
The moral of the story is this: The social care system may be unfair and it may need urgently fixing. But you don’t have to wait for the Government to take action. You can do something about it yourself NOW.
If your loved one is being told they are a self-funder and will need to use their life savings or sell their home to pay for care, call us now.
If your relative has been denied Continuing Health Care, get in touch with us and we will investigate if the decision is unlawful.
If you are being accused of a deliberate deprivation of assets, we can fight on your behalf.
Call us on 0203 653 0623 for a free, initial telephone conversation. We are available from 8am to 7pm, Monday to Friday.
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