Care home evictions

Older people's charities are claiming that a high number of care home residents are being evicted unnecessarily - because they, or often their relatives, complain about the quality of care, for instance.

The reason this is possible, Help the Aged and Age Concern argue, is the Human Rights Act 1998 - or rather the fact it doesn't apply to private care home providers.

Care services minister Ivan Lewis has suggested he will look into this, which is good news.

But is this a storm in a teacup or are people being turfed out of what is in effect their homes with no regard for their most basic rights?

 

 

• Filed under: Ivan Lewis, Age Concern, Help the Aged, Human Rights Act 1998

If this is the case then it is obviously a horrendous abuse of power by the care homes. It will be impossible for services to be held to account if older people feel that to complain about them could lead to the losing their home.

• Filed under: older people, care homes

It is not just evictions from care homes but evictions to other so-called homogeneous groups that gives cause for concern. 

As a basic principle is anyone is evicted simply because they exercise their right to complain then this is abhorrent.  Yet in the wonderful world of Supporting People we see evictions being commonplace even without the resident complaining.

I am referring to the offensive practise known as reconnections policies that apply only to rough sleepers.  In SP using a local connection to deny support (and a roof over someones head) is correctly and expressly diallowed under the grant conditions that local authorities receive SP grant from central government.  Yet ClG allow and condone 'reconnections' policies in SP.  This is where a rough sleeper presents to one authority and they try to 'reconnect' them with their locality of origin.  This is meant to be voluntary on behalf of the rough sleeper.  Yet, there are numeous cases in the public domain - Bournemouth for example - that unilaterally remove all rough sleepers after three days accommodation and support.  If they fail to go there are sanctions for the provider of such services.  Bournemouth is one of many along the south coast that operate this policy.

If the right to a roof over ones head is a basic human right for older persons then it must be a basic human right for all, however conveniently they are labelled (i.e. rough sleeper).  These vulnerable people do not have to complain to get evicted they just need to be classified as a rough sleeper or enter a service that claims to support and accommodate rough sleepers.

Of course, rough sleepers do not have the same public 'sympathy' as older persons  or the campaigning organisations such as Age Concern, etc fighting their cause.  Perhaps this is a major part of the problem - Yet the principle is the same with both being abhorrent and having a lack of genuine appeal or accountability.  Yet rough sleepers are being forced to leave by public bodies: this I would argue is far worse than care home evictions as these do NOT have the lack of human rights constraints that non-public bodies have in the care home scenario.

These practises have been highlighted for at least a year if not two years in SP and absolutely nothing has been done by local authorities concerned or by central government to address this scandal.  Perhaps if those power lobbies that fight for older persons services do get together then something will happen to stop the outrageous eviction practises of certain local authorities to rough sleepers.

 

 

This is an absolutely shocking state of affairs for vulnerable people.

I work with individuals with intellectual/learning disabilities and someone I know  may be effectively evicted from the flat he has lived in for about 7yrs .

The reason......the organisation (charity) REFUSE TO MEET HIS NEEDS BECAUSE IT WOULD INVOLVE PAYING SOMEONE TO DO A NIGHT SHIFT AS OPPOSED TO THE CURRENT SITUATION WHERE STAFF DO SLEEPOVERS.

It is being dressed up as him requiring 24 hr nursing care but many of the staff feel this is not so.Because of his intellectual disability and his complex needs he is unable to agree or disagree with anything that happens.

Talk of independant advocacy (non instructional) is discouraged as the organisation feels its staff are advocates ??????

The reason presumably quoted to you may not be the real reason.  In SP - that funds the support side of many supported living models of care - there is a major national concern over sleep-in and waking cover that all comes down to cost.  A sleep-in is paid at say £32 per staff member per night whereas waking cover would involve at least 8 hours at minimum wage (and usually higher), which is at least 38% more staffing expenditure cost and be twice that amount if staff are only paid £8 per hour.

Who pays for the additional cost is the question?  Under care-only funding this would involve a new care assessment (itself a cost). Under any SP / HB funded model or part model we see SP teams and HB depts are loggerheads over who pays.  HB say this is support therefore SP pays; SP say night cover (sleep-in or waking) comes under safety and security and hence HB should pay.  Whilst these two agencies squabble over this the provider of services is in a quandary and in mny cases not receiving any funding for these services at all, be they waking or sleep-in.

Hence provider's operational decisions are having to be driven by these agendas and services that need to provide higher levels (such as waking rather than sleep-in) or any form of out-of-hours services are looked at critically in terms of cost.  Not only doe this lead to less services and 'softer' evictions such as people being moved-on to higher-level and more disempowering services such as RCM, but access or entry to these services could also be 'excluding' higher need cases due to costs of funding not meeting costs of care and/or support.

This, in turn, creates tensions between joint funders which can and has led to assessments of care and support (i.e. who pays for what) not being realistic.

All in all, the vulnerable person at the bottom of these top-down (financial) dictats are the ones that inevitably suffer.

 

 

 It's interesting to hear about Supporting People - I used to write about it a couple of years ago. There were discussions about blurring the boundary between SP and care funding. Would it be justifiable for all the money to be in one pot? Also, I'm wondering if the government's SP strategy has made any difference?

A number of questions raised in Simeon's post. Firstly, the governments SP strategy cannot make any difference in strategic or operational terms as this is only a vague steer. CLG has removed virtually all statutory guidance and statutory directions and has given 85% of all authorities so-called "excellent" status. This means that these local authorities have the 'freedoms and flexibilities' to do in SP as they will. In short SP is a local not a national programme. The fact that 95% plus of all local authorities inspected have NOT attained excellent status by the Audit Commission reveals the nonsense in this central government thinking and 'hands-off' approach. Secondly, blurring the boundaries. Yes, in theory, joint care and support funding and joint commissioning is the way forward. In theory it is not just justifiable but the best way forward. In practise however all that has been achieved is in many cases the direct opposite. For those services that require care and support funding - and there are many examples - the reality is a nightmare and this mess threatens the supported living model of care as a viable delivery model, to the detriment of all involved. The national imbalance that sees £14bn or so a year in care funding and circa £1.5bn of support funding gong into the same pot and then administered by the £14bn per year budget holders means one thing only - that the £1.5bn is gettiing squeezed to meet shortfalls and deficits in the care funding budgets. SP brought the notions of "support" as opposed to "care" to the forefront of social policy funding. "Support" from central governments own stated intentions added a preventative agenda to this area - prevention here meaning if "support" is delivered then disempowering aand higher-cost 'care' would not be needed. CLG's own published figures also show that for every £1 invested in SP the public purse saves £1.70 in care and other costs. So, why reduce this preventative budget in the first place, and secondly why lump it in with care funding that doesnt save the public purse? In addition, why do away with SP as a separate and distinct identity as this also does away with the (cost-efficient) entire preventative and proactive agenda? If care funding is both rationed and reactive, which it is, why remove the cost-effective preventative and proactive option and complementary funding stream? The whole 'blurring the boundaries' issue is really a smokescreen for budget holders as it allowed both care and support budget holders to tighten eligibility. In care at the top end thus denying those vulnerable persons categorised in need of level 1 and level 2 care. SP tightened its eligibility criteria also at the top end of support meaning that high-level and high cost services were no longer funded. The problem with this is made evident when both support and care is seen in a continuum of need and 'help'. To explain we need to posit both support and care as 'help' and the continuum of need matches 'help' needed as follows. From lowest (A) to highest (G) 'help' we then see: A - Low level support B - medium level support C - high level support D - level 1 care E - level 2 care F - level 3 care (significant) G - level 4 care (critical) All involved in care recognise that category D and E is virtually unfunded nationally due to tightening of eligibility, and in many cases F. In addition SP has to a large extent failed to continue to fund level C. So, currently, we see just A,B, F (partly) and G being funded. A helluva lot of vulnerable people are being socially excluded on a financial basis. Further the main preventative 'help' (category C) has been removed. As such, the aggregate need for support will increase, the pressure on care budgets increase and for those services that need both care and support such as the supported living model have been adversely affected most by being hit with this 'double whammy' in reduction in both care and support eligibility and thereby funding. Whilst budget holders squabble over who pays, vulnerable service users are getting shafted. in summary, joint commissioning and joint funding in theory is the best way forward. SP 'enforced' this through its mandated commissioning bodies - a equitable decision-making unit of housing, social services, probation and health. Yet all this has achieved is parochial empire building and fights over who pays that has led to a huge black hole in service provision. The first three years of SP saw from CLG official figures almost 200,000 less vulnerable people receiving support, or about one in six vulnerable people losing all support. "Supporting" people like "Valuing" people are entire misnomers as vulnerable 'people' are neither supported or valued. Rather they are pawns and constraints in fundholders budget battles Simeon's post here is in the care home evictions thread. My comments thus far are limited to criticising councils and the impact their decisions have on vulnerable people. To complete the picture the impact on 'deliverers' of support needs comment. SP providers (the deliverers here) dont know whether they are coming or going and significantly cannot plan for the future delivery of services as funding is so risky. Commissioners are seeking to do away with accommodation-based provision in favour of floating or visiting support on the basis that it is cheaper and therefore more vulnerable people can be supported. This is entire nonsense again driven by (applied rigidity of) the theoretical principle that funding should follow the person. In theory of course this is right but it is so superficial. If you take vulnerable people out of needed accommodation-based provision that caters for both planned and reactive support and reduce both the intensity of suport and the frequency of support then their needs dont reduce and often increase. What happens in practise is the demand for AB support increases at the same time that supply reduces - Result is even more pressure in terms of cost and in terms of need - yet another double whammy. The fact that visiting support per hour costs more than AB support seems not to have been taken into account by commissioners. Yet official figures show this clearly and reveal that floating or visitin support costs between 10 and 30% higher than AB support. Simple arithmetic reveals that a fixed pot of money buys less floating support hours than AB support hours. It is also the case that a worker must deliver less support hours in a visiting service than in an AB service as the time involved in travel, etc has to be taken into account. The fact that an AB service can respond more effectively and quickly than a visiting service - often stopping perceived problems escalating - also has not been taken into account. In reality the superficiality of funding following the person is exposed. In theory it sounds goods, in practise it leads to less actual support, a reduction in the quality of support, a reduction in the frequency of support, a reduction in the operational effectiveness of support - all at a higher cost! While commissioners continue to have such nonsensical theoretical principles driving their thinking vulnerable people get shafted and so does the public purse.

Thanks for your comments SPeye, it seems as if Suppoting People is in a mess, which is a shame as people had such high hopes for it