CASCAIDr stands for the Centre for Adults’ Social Care – Advice, Information and Dispute Resolution
CASCAIDr is an online specialist advice charity, expert in the legal principles that are supposed to govern how adult social services operate in England and Wales, and which intertwine with rights to NHS services. We have been operating since 2018.
There’s no ‘appeal’ against social work or clinical decisions in these sectors – only complaints and litigation, but law is still relevant to those processes, and that’s what we’re good at explaining.
Our professional and charitable mission is supporting the sound administration of justice for anyone who, due to mental ill-health, physical or sensory impairments, deterioration or disability, needs access to care and support to enable them to work, study, stay safe or develop social networks.
In England, it’s the Care Act 2014, the Guidance issued under that Act by the Dept of Health and Social Care, and some regulations that shape people’s rights, but there are cases too, from the Administrative Court, and the local government Ombudsman’s reports about poor practice and unlawful decision-making, too.
We operate online, primarily, in a virtual space, and apart from our Operations Manager, work through unpaid trustees/directors, and volunteers.
In addition to our Advice services, in 2023 we launched our new CASCAIDr Crusaders Online Advocacy service, to provide online-only support and handholding through various types of meetings. Please click here to view details.
For full information on what we do/don’t do, please click here. If you have read this information and think your issue is in scope for our services, please click here to make a referral – please read the guidelines above the form thoroughly to assist you with filling it in.
The advice we provide is supposed to enable ordinary people to set out for ICBs’ and councils’ management and elected or Board Members, why they must apply public law principles and make decisions in line with legal expectations set by Parliament in the Care Act (and by government in the National Framework for NHS continuing health care). Whether that is the case any longer, after Covid, meltdown in the legal aid sector’s interest in this aspect of the Rule of Law, political and democratic culture crises, the cost of living crisis and social services and social care workforce crises – and as the country approaches genuinely seismic changes to adult social care in October 2023 – is beyond anyone’s wit to work out, but we will keep trying.
The advice output is geared to the resolution of disputes rather than the generation of litigation, but our work tends to re-invigorate regard for legal principle, enabling a competent and knowledgeable workforce to make defensible decisions, in good faith. We focus on complaints work and legal correspondence, well before using a threat to litigate.
CASCAIDr produces a fortnightly Round-Up of Care Act related news. It’s mainly legal developments and LGSCO ‘ombudsprudence’ that we focus on, but some of the other stories that we’ve covered in our Round-Up are shown below, linked to the original items for public access. Please click here for details and to subscribe for £25 per year (that’s just over £2 a month).
