LPOA Affairs is used to manage finance, assets and property;

LPOA Care is used to manage issues to do with medical and social care, relationships etc.

Forms are available from the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) and they are free. These can also be downloaded from the OPG website. The OPG has a call centre open during normal office hours and their helpdesk can help to chose which forms will be needed. It is also necessary to register a POA with the OPG before it becomes effective; there is a fee for registration. If the person requiring the POA is in receipt of certain benefits then OPG may waive the registration fees. It is also necessary to obtain witness certificates and for witnesses to sign the forms before a POA can be issued. Full information can be obtained from OPG who publish a comprehensive range of guidance leaflets. See http://www.publicguardian.gov.uk/. The court of protection can be approached if you have concerns about how a vulnerable person is being treated, either by a relative, a carer or an agency providing the person with services. In this situation the court may intervene and you can get more information about this at http://www.publicguardian.gov.uk/concerns/concerns.htm

If the situation is complex then it would pay to ask a solicitor to help draft the POA. Most solicitors charge £90 to £150 per hour; you should expect tp pay about £150 to £200 plus registration fees for an instrument. The court also has the power to appoint somebody else to manage the affairs of anyone lacking capacity; this is a more complex procedure and help from a solicitorwould be advisable. Information is available at http://www.publicguardian.gov.uk/decisions/decisions.htm

Let me know if you need any more help.

Larry

I'm new to the forum and am seeking some help or advice. As the parent of a young adult with a learning disability I am wondering whether it would be wise for me to have power of attorney so that I can protect his finances ? Also,how do I go about obtaining this ?

Any help or advice would be appreciated.

Crayford Lin

I've signed your petition and circulated your request to our email ist. I've also posted your message on our guestbook and will aske parents at our weekly drop-in to sign up too. Good luck!

Please keep us informed about progress,

Larry

www.jodiesappeal.co.uk

i ALSO WAS ON NATIONAL TV LAST YEAR FOR jODIE IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE IT PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KAs8a-3MNgQ

From andrew_windsor@hotmail.com - Assistant Clinical Manager (RNLD) - Manchester PCT

When social services assess my son's finances for his community care charge as soon as they understand that he is in receipt of ILF funding they take no further action. They leave ILF to assess his finances and make the charge for his service (which they do).

However my friend who lives in another authority whose daughter also receives ILF is having great difficulty as the social services dept insist her daughter owes over £700. ILF require her to pay half her DLA towards her care. In my friend’s authority social services are asking for the arrears and want £12.70 a week. Ignoring the fact that she is in receipt of ILF.

Therefore my question is who is legally responsible to collect a contribution towards community care charges, and does this change from one authority to another.

Many thanks in anticipation of advice

I have been reading all the messages on this subject and feel that a summary may be helpful for the parent concerned!

An individual can live in their own supported living accommodation with any of the 3 following options;

1) Have their own tenancy/ownership and be supported by a Domiciliary Care Team where the team (not the property) is inspected by CSCI. The domiciliary care team will be paid for either through direct payments or directly by the funding authority responsible for the individual.

2) Have their own tenancy/ownership and be supported by staff employed by the individual (with support from family possibly) and paid for through their direct payment. These staff are usually called personal assistants and are not inspected by anyone currently.

3) Be living in a supported living arrangement which is partly/all funded by Supported People Programme (origins Office of Deputy Prime Minster). The local authority will inspect this arrangement. The funding is awarded for specific reasons – to support individuals to gain greater independence and eventually move on from needing the funding. The inspection checks that the arrangements are meeting the specific criteria against which the funding is awarded.

Hope this helps

Caroline Fleming

Thank you in advance

Sarah Dunleavy

Occupational Therapy Technical Instructor

Tel: 0121 612 8445

Fax: 01216128448

I work for Camden People First an advocacy service and before that worked for Camden social services as a support worker for Supported living. In the last 5 years the service users paid for the staff meals and entrance fees to outings etc but this practice has been changed and as new service providers come in they have policies in place that mean that staff have to pay for their own food and entrance fees. It is becoming a widely formed practice within services for this to be put into place as it is possible for the service users’ money to be abused when staff are shopping for food and going out

Don’t know if this is any help but it is how it works in Camden at the moment.

Jill

I work in commissioning and contracting in a local authority, and have come across instances where CSCI have highlighted this to us or I have found this out for myself on spot checking individuals finances when I do a monitoring visit. We have also found on occasion that some services were using people’s personal allowance to prop up both activity and transport budgets. We tend to approach this in the same way.

Within this authority we have a clause within the contracts that states what the price we pay includes, and staff related funding is within this therefore should come out of the service budget. Therefore backdoor funding top up in this way is not permissible. On a good practice level I believe CSCI also view this not permissible as they have contacted me to clarify this on occasion.

I see this as another way of some residential services wrongly using individual’s personal allowance to 'top up their fee by the back door'. Of course, as always, there is always the exception to this... i.e. an individual likes to go out to eat in a pub at least twice a week, and the fee we pay the home only indicated an average allocation of £3.50/£4.40 per person per day therefore would not really take this into account (I think generally once a week is reasonable for anyone to expect to eat on average). In these instances I think there should be discussion/agreement in a multi disciplinary area as to how this will be taken forward, thereby giving an audit trail that can be monitored.

I also feel we need to put in place protocols to be followed as a general rule of thumb for people living in supported living accommodation / support services to enable a consistent message being given across the board. This is one of the things we are presently addressing within our authority and if anyone else already has this work and would be prepared to share it, I would be grateful.

I've seen academics quoting Hatton 1998 frequently, that study but the number of people with severe and profound (combined again) at 3 to 4 people per 1000.

Would be great if you could post any better studies/stats that you come across....

Simon

Hope this helps. Malcolm

Helen Laverty

Health Lecturer University of Nottingham

Using the DDA definition of disability - which is incredibly broad - 7% of the child population is disabled or in England 570,000 children. You can calculate the figure for your local area by finding out the number of children in your population - will be part of local statistics on a website.

Of this population 100,000 (i.e. 17% of 570,000) children can be defined as severely disabled - this figure comes from higher rate DLA figures and will include children with PMLD. So you can look up for your area the number of adults claiming higher rate DLA - that is broken down into local authority areas. This figure will be much larger than just PMLD, but will give you a starter!

Many years ago as a parent I campaigned for the right to a continence service for disabled children in my area. When this was agreed the health authority phone me - a parent - and asked if I could come up with the figures. I phoned the special schools and the child development centre and asked them for the numbers of children known to them using continence products - and when the service was set up the figures were fairly accurate! So you could do a phone around - day services or a short questionnaire - this will give you a ball park figure that is likely to be accurate - or accurate enough to work with!

Other option is try the PMLD department staff at Mencap.

Hope that is helpful

Jeanne

There is website jointly managed by the Down's Syndrome Association and St. George's, University of London which gives some information about numbers of people with learning disabilities. They state that: "Individuals with mild disability represent the largest proportion (approximately 2.5% of the whole population); moderate intellectual disability involves approximately 0.4% of the population, and severe and profound levels combined account for approximately 0.1%".

http://www.intellectualdisability.info/mental_phys_health/epidemiology_vp.html

Regards

Jackie

Many thanks

Mike Ormian

I'm new to the forum and would like to introduce myself. My name is Charlotte Wilkinson and i work for a PCT in Nottinghamshire. My role involves ensuring quality standards are maintained in residential care schemes for people with learning disabilities funded by the PCT. I would therefore like to use the forum to increase my knowledge of good practice, particularly in relation to residential care.

Could anyone help me with this good practice query?

I work with a PCT in ensuring quality standards are maintained in some residential care homes for people with learning disabilities funded by the PCT. I have come across a service provider who has just started asking service users to pay for staff meals (if the service user is going out for a meal accompanied by staff) and staff entrance fees as well as their own when staff accompany them on outings which require such expenditure. I cannot find anything in CSCI regulations/standards that prohibits this practice although the result is likely to be that certain residents will no longer be able to afford to take part in these activities.

I would very much appreciate views on this and whether it is common practice in other care homes.

Thanks,

Charlotte Wilkinson

Thanks to Janine Tye from Wolverhampton for spotting this in the Princess Royal Trust for Carers Policy Update March 08.

Legal ruling on direct payments from the NHS

Sunderland Primary Care Trust has agreed, following a Judicial Review, to make payments directly to the parents of a severely disabled adult for the care they provide to her, and which she refuses to receive from paid care workers. As a NHS Continuing Healthcare patient, the responsibility for funding and arranging the daughter’s care falls on the NHS, rather than the local social services department who would have been able to make direct payments to the parents as her refusal to receive care from anyone but her parents would constitute the “exceptional circumstances” required in order to allow direct payments to be made to close, co-resident family members. Direct Payments do not apply to PCTs. Although NHS law is theoretically wide enough to allow for equivalent payments, the PCT argued that it would be 'unlawful' to make them and to do so would open the floodgates. The judge accepted the family’s argument that there was no legal bar to the PCT making such payments and no reason to justify different treatment of those who are the responsibility of social services, and the health service. Payments of over £35,000 per annunm, and the family’s legal costs will now be paid.

It may just be the wording used in this summary, but it would be interesting to see a copy of the judgement as on face value I don’t think what is being described is ‘direct payments’ as currently defined, but rather ‘payments directly to those providing the care’. Of course, the important thing in this case is the actual result, not the specific definition of the payment type, but it is important to know for wider application if the judge actually ruled to the effect that the PCT is able to make payments directly to the person receiving the support.

With best wishes,

Robin.

I am not a professional, but a parent many years ahead of you. Maybe I can offer you some hope.

Why not apply for Direct Payments to pay for help for your son whilst you are working. And then if this is successful then (if your son meets the criteria) apply to Independent Living Funds for further financial support to pay for care.

It’s not an easy process, but from one that has gone down that route, I can say it has made a considerable difference to our lives and that of our daughter. You would need help from either a social worker or carers support or your local Mencap, but there has to be somebody in your area that can guide you through the maze.

The Government is doing much to support parents back to work but little to support carers remain in or return to work. Non - working parents on benefit have to go back to work when their child reaches age 16 (or younger?) and thus move off benefit. Working parent carers of young people with learning difficulties are more likely to stop work when their child reaches age 18 due to the lack of available care and thus move onto benefits. Yes, I too may soon exchange a professional job for £45 a week benefit. I have qualifications, skills and experience but I am to be consigned to the scrap heap 10/15 years before my working life is officially over. So much for the Government's drive for people to build up their pensions!

I want to continue caring for my son at home and have successfully combined caring and working for 17 years. Unfortunately it appears I am being penalised for having my son at home. He is not ready to move on yet but I hope he will have a good package of care to live independently in the future.

A lack of availability and flexibility in the delivery of services is hampering my future as a working carer – why should I be left to wait for buses to collect and drop off my son for day services? For transport that can arrive at any time? For services that have timings that are 40 years behind the times? Who works between 10.00am and 2.30pm?

I keep hearing that things have modernised and it’s all so much better but in reality this means off loading total responsibility to me as a carer. There needs to be dialog between the service planners and providers with the service users and a commitment to respond quickly the changing lives, rights and expectations of carers. Why should I have to stop work because my son reaches 18? Nothing has changed – he is merely a year older. I enter the twilight world of the carer of an adult with learning difficulties: invisible, forgotten and marginalised. Much is written in policy but little seems to translate into practical solutions. What can we do? Can any professionals on the forum make some suggestions?

This one day conference has Keynote speakers Professor Nigel Beail presenting his research on “Sexual Trauma and Challenging behaviour”, and Dr Simon Halstead on “Challenging Behaviour a legal perspective.

The conference is aimed at anyone working in the field of LD who wishes to improve their practice working with people with Learning disabilities, Autism and Complex needs.

The event will be in Lincoln on the 15th July and includes workshops on developing individual behaviour packages, Supporting people with LD, Challenging behaviour and mental health issues, the Mansell report and creating positive environments for Children and young people.

More info can be found at www.sharonpaley.co.uk and clicking on the conference tab. Alternatively mail markwakefield@sharonpaley.co.uk and ask for details

Mark Wakefield

The parents are wondering if anyone else has had similar experience and if so how they handled it.

Thanks in anticipation

I heard that partners in policymaking were setting something up to match PA's with people - think it 's going to be called 'pamatch' or something along those lines ....

Might be worth giving them a ring to find out whats happening with this. I think they are still based in new century halls by walton chirch in Liverpool.

I'm really sorry for not replying sooner; I've not been well. Sefton did have a specialist benefits advice service but they have decided to close it. I understand what you say about CAB. The first-come-first-served system inevitably means queues and children just don't like waiting around. This week is 'Carers Rights Week' and Sefton Carers Centre have specialist advisers who can carry out a thorough 'Carers Needs Assessment' and provide expert help in filling out all the application forms.

I don't know which end of Sefton you live in, but the place to go in South Sefton is 27-37 South Road in Waterloo. There are five bus routes stopping nearby and the centre is just a short walk from Waterloo Station. Call 0151 288 6060 to make an appointment so you don't have to wait. The specialist advocate for families and disabled children is Sue Neal. If you want to set up an appointment via email then the address is help@carers.sefton.gov.uk but it is probably best to telephone if you need an appointment urgently.

The other source of help is the national Contact-a-Family helpline. This organisation is the only national resource dedicated to families with disabled children and they have a lot of experience in advising on benefits and access to support services.

Contact a Family Helpline 0808 808 3555

Monday to Friday, 10am-4pm & Monday, 5.30-7.30pm

Textphone 0808 808 3556

They also have a vast library of resources, many on-line informations sources and links to other sites together with a really good FAQ which you can find by pasting this link into your browser: http://www.cafamily.org.uk/libraryFAQ.html

Finally, if you feel that there is a disability discrimination issue or, if you need help preparing for a tribunal hearing then the people to contact are called IPSEA; they also have a helpline:

0800 0184016

Mon to Thu 10--4 and 7--9;

Fri 10--1 and 7--9

The website address is; http://www.ipsea.org.uk/helplines.htm

If you need any more help then give me a call. Best wishes, Larry

--- Truecolours 

Support for carers is provided by the Carers Centre, South Road, Waterloo L22 5RF. You can reach them on 0151 288 6060.

The most useful service they provide is a 'carers needs assessment' which is a detailed inventory of the carers situation.

They can also assist with benefits advice and signposting to services available to support carers. All of this information and support is eminently suitable for parents with disabled children or children with SEN. As parents we are the primary care givers for our children! Don't get hung up on the name. Sefton Carers Centre is for you....100% for you. This means YOU!