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The committee will discuss again the issue of real choice – whether this is given to vulnerable adults who use the council’s social services – and the well-being of disabled residents.
When social workers carry out assessments of disabled residents’ needs, do they look for the individuals’ well-being needs or only for what the council deems ‘eligible needs’? Because the latter is unlawful under the Care Act 2014.
Deciding in advance what are someone’s ‘eligible’ needs, which too often are limited to the very basic physical needs of eating, toileting, washing and dressing, and not taking into account his or her emotional and social needs, his/her need for friendships and family life, a home of his/her own and stimulating activities in the community to which she/he belongs, is treating the disabled resident who is relying on social services’ support differently than any other resident. It is implying that disabled residents deserve a lesser quality of life, a lesser well-being, than anyone else.
Cllr Reema Patel have asked that the Adults & Safeguarding Committee is provided with details of the procedures and practices used at care planning assessments where care options are discussed with individual social care users, demonstrating how each individual is enabled to exercise choice in their care, and how the identification of need is always free from resource considerations.
In response, the committee received a report (Item 6 of the agenda, p. 9), which is not wholly satisfying.
Join members of the Barnet Campaign for the Right to Live Independently in the public gallery, as they ask questions about this report, as well as about Item 10 of the agenda, to highlight the existing risk for Barnet vulnerable residents' independence and choice.
The councillors of the committee have all received copies of the letters that the campaign originally sent at the end of December 2019 to Cllr Rajput, the Chair of the committee, and to Dawn Wakeling, Strategic Director for Adults, Communities and Health. These letters never got a reply. They can be viewed here and here.
The campaign has recently sent to the local press the following letter, and it is developing a document of Advice to Service Users who are about to have a social worker’s assessment of their needs.
For more information on these issues and on the campaign’s objectives, or if you have experience as a service user or a carer in Barnet, please contact: barnetalliance4publicservices@gmail.com .
The next campaign meeting will take place on Tuesday 10th of March at 6.30 in the Greek Cypriot Centre, 2 Britannia Road North Finchley N12 9RU. All Welcome.
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