Countdown begins on preserved rights

The
Department for Work and Pensions is to issue local authorities with
lists of preserved rights cases in their area within the next
week.

The
councils will use the lists to prepare a rolling programme of
assessments of individuals’ care needs and financial means in order
to prepare for the abolition of the preserved rights rates of
income support in April 2002.

The
preserved rights benefit rates are the higher rates of income
support paid to people who received public funding towards the cost
of an independent nursing or residential care home place before the
Community Care Act 1990 was implemented in 1993.

The
Health and Social Care Act 2001 is to abolish the scheme, and
transfer care assessment, arrangement and funding responsibility to
councils. In turn, local authorities will be given the funding used
to pay the higher rate of income support in order to enable them to
meet the cost of their new responsibilities for this client
group.

The
draft guidance on preserved rights published last month argues that
a resident “must not normally be forced to leave his existing care
home if the home is acting reasonably in its contractual demands,
is able to meet the residents’ care needs and the resident wishes
to stay”.

Specifically, it states that councils should not seek to enforce a
move “simply because the fee level at the time of the change is
more than the authority’s normal rate for the level of care
provided”.

For
draft guidance go to website www.doh.gov.uk/scg/preservedrights.htm