Baroness Jane Campbell has just alerted me to a very worrying proposal being considered by Worcestershire County Council and if she's worried about it we all should be.
Basically Worcestershire CC want to put a cap on the amount of money they spend on disabled people living independently in the community. The cap would be the amount of money it would cost for that same person to live in a care home.
So, if your care costs more than the cost of a care home you either have to cover the extra costs yourself [at a time when the government is looking to strip away as many benefits as they can], source help from friends/family/neighbours/charities or compromise on the care package you need. Otherwise you move into a care home.
It may come as a surprise to some but there are many disabled people who live independently, quite happily in the community but the level of support they receive could well cost more than a care home and therefore under these proposals they could well end up being shunted into a care home because they have no alternative.
Doesn't this all sound vaguely like doing the opposite of what we've been aiming to do over the past few decades, 'care in the community' and all that?
It just feels like this government is trying to strip away and strip away whatever we have - money, independence, dignity. Are we really going to go back to the whole 'out of sight out of mind' thing?
Is this really happening in 2012?
To read more:
http://wearespartacus.org.uk/past-caring-report/
http://www.worcestershire.gov.uk/cms/pdf/04-MEP-Consultation-EasyRead.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment