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| THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. TX: 30.11.06 - Care Criteria PRESENTER: WINIFRED ROBINSON ROBINSON Thousands of elderly and disabled people are facing cuts to or even an end of the care services provided in their homes. A report by the Commission for Social Care Inspections says two thirds of all councils in England have changed their eligibility criteria, leaving only the most ill and vulnerable being offered any help. Our disability reporter Carolyn Atkinson has more. Carolyn, the Commission for Social Care Inspection, who exactly are they? ATKINSON Well they were set up in 2004 to assess the state of social care in England. Now this is their annual report looking at how well the councils are doing at providing adult social care, that's care at home, nothing to do with care in residential homes. Now there are 150 councils in England and they're obliged to provide care packages for elderly and disabled people who want to or who can live at home, that's this big government idea of independent living. Now a couple of years ago there was a feeling that the playing field was far from flat, so the government brought in new guidance on eligibility criteria and that was meant to level that playing field, so that someone needing care in Exeter, for example, should be treated roughly the same as say someone in Newcastle. And to do that they brought in four new categories to assess people's needs and they were deemed as low, moderate, substantial and the top level critical. ROBINSON So what's changed? ATKINSON Well the CSCI are saying those criteria are sort of moving, they've basically collected evidence which proves that the goalposts are moving. Of those 150 councils about 100 of them have tightened the criteria over the past year so that you only get support if your needs are now substantial or critical. So basically you have a social worker, they assess your needs and if you come in as low or moderate then you're on your own - you either make do, you get help from your family or your friends or you fork out and pay for the care yourself. And I should say that even though those councils are moving their goalposts a very large number of councils are also reporting that they're planning to move the goalposts and to make the criteria even tighter. ROBINSON Does it mean though Carolyn that people whose needs are assessed as low or moderate and who currently get help won't in future or have had that help withdrawn? ATKINSON That's exactly what appears to be the conclusion of all this, that's things like bathing and dressing and shopping and cleaning. And we also do know that three councils in the country are now - sorry in England - are only providing care to people who are deemed in critical need - now they're North Yorkshire, Northumberland and West Berkshire. ROBINSON So how does all this square up with government guidelines that you were talking about a moment ago? ATKINSON Well there does appear to be a big gulf here because those guidelines, and I'm reading from them now, stress that councils should not only identify immediate needs but, I quote: "... they should also identify needs that would worsen for the lack of timely help." So basically they're saying if you think something's going to happen to someone you should step in before it happens. ROBINSON What else is in the report? ATKINSON Well the social care services for adults overall have improved across England but they're saying that the rate of improvement is slowing down. And this is where all these famous stars come in, you'll remember the easy way in which they measure services so we can understand them. Forty four councils now have three stars, so that's top of the range; 73 councils have two stars; 33 councils have just one star. The good news for the Isles of Scilly is that they had no stars last year and they've now been upgraded to one star. ROBINSON Carolyn Atkinson, thank you. Well in the studio is Jonathan Ellis, who's from Help the Aged. Have you seen the impact of this change, these moving goalposts, beginning to feed through? ELLIS Yes, this is a trend that's been going on for quite some time and at Help the Aged we've been hearing from increasing numbers of older people and their families who are shocked and dismayed to find out that they're simply not eligible for the sort of care and support that they assumed would be available from their local authority. And it has a dramatic impact on people's quality of life, their overall confidence, how engaged they are with their communities and whether they simply get out and about. ROBINSON The idea behind Care at Home is two fold isn't it, both that it's what people want but also that it can be a much cheaper thing to offer than care in a home. How does the economics of it all square up then for the local authorities? ELLIS Well we think that this a terribly short sighted approach to care because what effectively happens - what councils are effectively saying to older people is you have to wait until your needs get to such a level, such a high level, before we'll even consider providing a level of care which inevitably means that people may be admitted prematurely, earlier than they need to be, into permanent institutional care, which is much more costly than providing a little bit of help to someone in their home. ROBINSON And where do the cutbacks in the NHS, which are going on at the moment, these efforts to balance the budget, where do they feed in? ELLIS Well I think inevitably they've had a - they've accelerated some of these problems. But as I say this is a trend that's been going on probably for at least 10 years. But of course as the pressure gets tighter on the NHS and the NHS is mindful of how it's spending its money then inevitably that puts more pressure on cash strapped social care services. ROBINSON And what is the legal position as a consumer of these services and looking at the law as outlined by Carolyn Atkinson a moment ago, is there anything that you can do? ELLIS Well it's a very grey area, we all have a right to be assessed but the council has a duty to consider our own ability to pay and its own resources in determining who should actually receive that care. So it is a very difficult area and what it does mean is that large numbers of people are left to fend for themselves or indeed to rely on voluntary organisations to fill the gap. ROBINSON Jonathan Ellis from the Help the Aged thank you. Back to the You and Yours homepage The BBC is not responsible for external websites |
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