Yesterday, one of the few boroughs in England that provided free home care for elderly residents and disabled people started charging them.
Hammersmith and Fulham Council is now charging up to £10 an hour for domiciliary care, with an option to raise the rate to £12.40, after a judicial review last week ruled against campaigners.
Hammersmith and Fulham Coalition against Community Care Cuts (Hafcac) argued that the council had failed to conduct a proper assessment of its policy on vulnerable people and, by imposing the charges, the Tory administration had contradicted its election manifesto.
Although I do not believe we should resort to the law each time a political party fails to live up to its manifesto promises - unless we want to jam up the legal system (now, there's a thought) - I wished the west London council had been banged to rights on this one.
The free home care service was introduced by the previous Labour-run council and initially maintained when the Conservatives were elected in 2006.
However, it wasn't long before the Tories started their programme of cuts. By spring 2007, the in-house home care team had been scrapped and the service outsourced. Some of the staff were re-employed by the new operator but others faced redundancy.
Some who moved to the outsourced company found their hours cut and earned less than when they worked for Hammersmith and Fulham. This in a sector that pays diddly-squat rates in the first place.
But at least provision remained free at the point of delivery for service users.
For such a true blue council - David Cameron is reputed to be a fan of its leader, Stephen Greenhalgh - the home care rethink was never going to stop at privatisation. The re-introduction of charging would have to be next.
So means-tested fees of up to £10 an hour it is.
Before the provision became free in early 2006, a service user whom I knew well received home care that included three visits each day and help with washing, food preparation, cleaning, shopping. Everything and anything.
For that he paid just over £20 a week for about 15 hours' help.
From this week in Hammersmith and Fulham, 15 hours' home care a week could attract a charge of £150.
If that is not bad enough, there has been no mention about how much of this hyper-inflationary hike will be passed on to the assiduous and diligent home care workers.
One can only hope that this isn't the beginning of the end for what remains of free home care in England.
I've only just found that Rochdale, where I reside in warden controlled accomadation - has stopped supplying care workers from the Social Services section and now all careres that are available are from private care firms in the area!
I came acr oss this when I asked my warden if she would arrange an assesment of need of a carer! Her reply gave me no hope only to advise m of the current situation with a cost of £13.70/hour!!
When I'd picked myself up and stopped crying I found that I woukd now have to plead & beg for help from my daughter and my brothers family - not a happy thought.
As a support worker, I am employed to encourage vulnerable service users to "maintain their independence". This might mean weekly contact to ensure all needs are being met, including support to manage income, benefits, rent arrears, home carers, mail etc. You can imagine my horror, then, when users who could not clean their homes but relied on house carers were not receiving the service because clients' homes were deemed a health and safety risk!! If clients' homes are a risk to home carers what then of the client!!?
You may think me impertinent for raising this issue here but i was thinking of setting up a service to encourage users to clean and or declutter their homes with a decorating service. This may be useful for the elderly, for those who are physically disabled or for clients who own their homes and are dissatisfied with social services measures. What do you or others think?