The difference between a top up for one’s preferred accommodation and additional payments for other kinds of care

After years of fighting for an adequate care package at home, my elder sister’s council/social worker offered her a care home and refused to provide a slight increase in care that would have meet her needs in the community. Since she’s been in the care home she has rapidly declined in her physical and mental health as well as her mobility and cognitive/language abilities. She still maintains her own GP, who is shocked by how rapidly she’s declined despite the home providing decent care. She is a thousand times worse in the residential home than she was in her own place with the meager amount of support she was given. Is there anything at all we can do about this to hold the council responsible for failing her in this way?

Leave a Comment / Assessing for incapacity where it is relevant to Care Act functions, Assessment and Eligibility, Care Planning, Budgets and Choice Rights, Care Planning, Cuts and Personal Budgets Q&As, Choice of Accommodation post Care Act, Choice of Accommodation Rights for Mental Health Act aftercare clients, Failings to Assess, Reassess, Review Q&As, General rules about changing the content or value of a care or a support plan based on the Care Act case law, How the Mental Capacity Act affects the Care Act, Judicial Review, Legal Aid for Judicial Review in the Administrative Court and Court of Protection, Mental Capacity and Best Interests Q&As, Overview of what is required by the rules on Deprivation of Liberty, under the DoL Safeguards, Person's own circumstances - the implication of increases and reductions or stabilisation of needs, Procedural safeguards before meeting needs with a regime that amounts to Deprivation of Liberty, Q&As on Care planning, Cuts, and Personal Budgets, Q&As on Failings regarding Assessments, Re-assessments, Reviews, Q&As on Mental Capacity and Best Interests decision-making, Q&As on Remedies, Relevance of mental capacity for Choice of Accommodation Rights, Remedies Q&As, Remedies, rights, complaints, regulatory and criminal law aspects to adult social care, enforcement of one’s rights, Reviews and Revisions (cuts or changes to content), Reviews, Revisions and Re-assessments under the Care Act, The conditions on which choice of accommodation depends, The difference between a top up for one's preferred accommodation and additional payments for other kinds of care, The significance of an arbitarily/indefensibly low rate to meet a person's need for Choice of Accommodation challenges /

Does she have a home to go to, still? I.e. accommodation where she has a right to occupy? It doesn’t have to be HERS – it could be the home of a relative, or the opportunity to have a tenancy in another building in which care could be provided, in theory. If so, ask for […]

After years of fighting for an adequate care package at home, my elder sister’s council/social worker offered her a care home and refused to provide a slight increase in care that would have meet her needs in the community. Since she’s been in the care home she has rapidly declined in her physical and mental health as well as her mobility and cognitive/language abilities. She still maintains her own GP, who is shocked by how rapidly she’s declined despite the home providing decent care. She is a thousand times worse in the residential home than she was in her own place with the meager amount of support she was given. Is there anything at all we can do about this to hold the council responsible for failing her in this way? Read More »

Can a local authority rule out a particular care home, for respite or long term care, on the basis that it does not have a commissioning relationship with it?

Leave a Comment / Care Planning, Budgets and Choice Rights, Care Planning, Cuts and Personal Budgets Q&As, Choice of Accommodation post Care Act, Duties and Discretions, Q&As on Care planning, Cuts, and Personal Budgets, The conditions on which choice of accommodation depends, The difference between a top up for one's preferred accommodation and additional payments for other kinds of care, The irrelevance of a council's financial resources for whether a need is met; relevant only for HOW, The range of services, items, facilities and responses able to be provided under the Care Act, The types of accommodation arrangements to which Choice Rights apply, What does the concept of a Right to Choose Accommodation mean? /

No. Existing commissioning relationships are not determinative for choice of accommodation rights, subject to the ordinary rules of top ups.Commissioning policy, and a care home’s being in a contractual relationship with a local authority, is specifically not relevant to the choice of accommodation and top ups and as such, cannot be relevant for respite arrangements

Can a local authority rule out a particular care home, for respite or long term care, on the basis that it does not have a commissioning relationship with it? Read More »

R (D by his litigation friend SA) v Brent Council [2015]

Leave a Comment / Care Planning, Budgets and Choice Rights, Choice of Accommodation post Care Act, Housing Rights for children under 18 through Housing Legislation, How Children's Services fit in with the Care Act (and transitioning from Children's Services, The difference between a top up for one's preferred accommodation and additional payments for other kinds of care, The primacy of s20 Children Act for children who cannot live at home with their parent(s) /

R (D by his litigation friend SA) v Brent Council [2015] Keywords: Assessment, Time limits D was a 23-year-old with autistic spectrum disorder and severe communication difficulties who was described as vulnerable. He had attended a residential special school until July 2015. On 8th May 2015, Brent Council had assessed D as having a need

R (D by his litigation friend SA) v Brent Council [2015] Read More »