Can't get electric wheelchair due to where I live

Wibbles

I have been refused a mandatory electric wheelchair by the local council OT department due to the fact that I live in one County and my GP surgery is in another 
I have been told that since don't pay council tax in the county that my GP surgery is in they won't pay and my council won't pay because my GP surgery is not on their County 
This is NOT over!! 

Hannah_Alumni

@Wibbles I'm sorry to hear that. I do hope you get it resolved soon! 

Wibbles

Hannah_Scope said:

@Wibbles I'm sorry to hear that. I do hope you get it resolved soon! 

It is provided by NHS - not my local council so I am hoping that it is just down to an admin c ock up

Hannah_Alumni

@wibbles Fingers crossed! Have you contacted your NHS consultant? 

newborn

So, If your GP said you need social care your council would refuse to pay? What if your GP said you need, say, home adaptations?  Or prescribed you oneof those exercise or social activity on prescription schemes? Or even a chiropody service may be part funded by councils, so both will refuse you.

There are quite a lot of these invisible Berlin Walls.
One Bristol charity worker described his position on Radio 4 'My Name Is,,,,' series: His disability was complex, but he had his job, his carers, his social circles and his family, all within a short range. But after a hospital stay, the only place he could be put was a place he should not be, because it was an NHS rehabilitation flat meant to return lots of patients from hospital, not for one of them as permanent residence. Therefore, he needed to leave. But a local authority boundary line meant that just those few streets of the town centre were the property of a different area. 

 The new area which now 'owned' him had absolutely nowhere for  him to go. At a push, and with the unusual case of him having access, through his work, to MPs and top council officials involved, they could be  made to offer him a very slightly habitable property, but in a completely different corner of their own area. Not one part of his life could be continued. Work, social life, family, study, the vital care team, were all too far away.  Yet if he refused the offer, he was voluntarily homeless, having turned down the offer. Meanwhile the council covering the main part of Bristol, where his life was, were refusing to have anything to do with him.

 By letting the NHS discharge him into one of those 'wrong' streets, he had cut all rights to be housed by the old council. (Even if there was anything suitable, which as we know is like winning the Eurolottery, because disabled housing stock is nearly entirely absent in UK and nobody intends to change that, in case developers don't like it.   Did you know there had been a 'public consultation' on whether or not all newbuild should be up to disability habitable standard, to start to correct the absence? The Equalities Impact Assessment attached to the paperwork stated that there is no need, and that disabled people will find it a 'positive benefit' to have nowhere to live? (!!!) (Raising Accessibility Standards for New Homes, September '20, in government archives)

You can make yourself ineligible for housing, by, say,  living with friends on one side of the road then moving to friends on the 'wrong side of the tracks' if the dividing line runs down the road. Each council will say you don't 'belong' to them, will play pass the parcel, and will  tell you "go back where you came from", so you will be made street homeless.

Ironically, it would be  unthinkable to say those words to an incomer who paid no tax ever, to any council in UK. Ironically, there is a legal obligation to house them instantly. No proof is demanded of ID or of means, or of not having 'disposed of means' (which is itself ironic because the travel can apparently cost up to a quarter million.) 

  

Wibbles

Hannah_Scope said:

@wibbles Fingers crossed! Have you contacted your NHS consultant? 

Which one ?

I am currently not under any - but in recent times, I have had too many to count on one hand - due to the complexity of my problems - from urology, through cardiology and gastro-enterlogy and orthopaedics and ENT - and more....

Hannah_Alumni

Oh I thought you were still under your orthopedic consultant. Thought they may be able to help as it is linked to your mobility.  May be worth enquiring? 

Wibbles

I have been referred back to my GP for a wheelchair assesment 
The problem being that my GP is on maternity leave for 12 months
The whole procedure is one big joke.!!