Age related cliff edges for care. Do older adults get less social care from the council? — Scope | Disability forum
Please read our updated community house rules and community guidelines.

Age related cliff edges for care. Do older adults get less social care from the council?

newborn
newborn Community member Posts: 832 Pioneering
edited December 2021 in Benefits and financial support
Can someone up-date me please?  I know when a disabled child reaches a certain age the services and provisions suddenly stop. 
 He is transferred to a different social care team (Adults) with a different and much lower budget.  A means tested care package can be applied for, which includes provision for access to social life .

After that, when another birthday is reached, the adult disabled person's 'needs assessment' will suddenly be changed again. He is now under an entirely different team, (Older Adult) with an entirely different and much lower budget, and the 'needs' they assess do not include much, or any, requirement to ensure he has a social life, or any life outside his home.
A poorly funded council may decline to permit any 'care hours' to assist him to leave house-imprisonment at all, arguing that all he is entitled to is physical care and food, so provided a supply of food reaches him, he has no 'need' to be assisted  to leave, or accompanied, as he once was.   

It seemed to me that when the Equalities Laws were introduced, the reasoning that 'Older' adults were a different category of human, with reduced human rights, should be tested in law.  If that is not Ageism, what is?   I have not followed any legal cases on those matters for some time.  Can someone tell me if this is still the practice of local councils,  and if it has been challenged? 

(I also wondered if there is a standard percentage in the ratios, i.e. if a wealthy and a poor council will both spend, say, one third as much as the budget per head for  Older Adults?)  

Comments

  • rigavitch
    rigavitch Community member Posts: 24 Listener
    What a sad truth you have exposed. I am also heartbroken by the fact the NHS slapped DNR on the intellectually disabled and over 50's during Covid! Eugenics in the uk is a difficult pill to swallow but I guess the whole world is in some kind of decay and decline. The removal of God and basic respect for religion has not been replaced by any natural human empathy and community, as perhaps expected...

  • newborn
    newborn Community member Posts: 832 Pioneering
    Thank you Rigavitch.  Its appreciated someone answered.  Yes you are right, the practice of both age and disability eugenics was seen in the DNR Covid matter. 
      
    There are other things, like the N.H.S. stopping screening and stopping offering treatments by an age bar, though in theory they were banned from doing so.   

    Another thing is the fact the Office of National Statistics refuses to record rapes over a certain age (it was till recently 59 but has been slightly extended)  They simply don't provide a tick box for older ages to be entered on the form. Yet Ageism is unlawful.

      I'm not sure that hoping for religion would appeal to those who tried living under Taliban! 

     I had wondered if anyone would consider the legal aspect.  People faught hard and long to get the original Disability Discrimination Act, which was the most beautiful piece of legislation I ever read.  It was not repealed  by, but intended to be included within, the Single Equalities Act. However, all equality bar race has apparently been forgotten.
       
    Believe it or look it up, but there was an Equalities Impact Assessment last year, concluding that Disabled people would be positively benefitted by having nowhere to live (true...see public consultation, building regulations)

    And meanwhile, the numerous publicly funded branches of the civil service and the quangos just sit back on their big fat salary and pension packages, and do absolutely nothing. 

     I follow the EHRC updates, but they interest themselves in Burma and in  immigrant rights and anything however obscure to do with race, but never mention disabiliity and age. Sir Trevor Phillips remarked that " Disablism is worse than racism, in it's effects on peoples lives, yet is universally practiced, institutionalised, socially accepted and invisible".   True but he could have said the same for Ageism, which is virtually government policy.  

Brightness

Do you need advice on your energy costs?


Scope’s Disability Energy Support service is open to any disabled household in England or Wales in which one or more disabled people live. You can get free advice from an expert adviser on managing energy debt, switching tariffs, contacting your supplier and more. Find out more information by visiting our
Disability Energy Support webpage.