Wednesday, February 14, 2007
CARE CHARGES TO RISE
LAMBETH BUDGET CUTS TO IMPACT ON CARE OF ELDERLY AND DISABLED.
HOME CARE CHARGES TO RISE TO £17.50 PER HOUR
(PRESENTLY £7.50)
Comments from soneone working in the voluntary care field.
I know many of you will not have come
up against Social Services so probably won't really understand the implications of the LAMBETH Council's proposals. Take it from me that the cuts are seriously damaging to disabled people and voluntary sector organisations which provide much needed services to them. (I work in one of the affected organisations and that means I know much more than the general public about what impact the cuts will have.) And the Labour Council can find work-arounds to avoid these cuts to services for vulnerable people (I won't go into details here).
As many disabled people often don't find it so easy to make their views known, please at least make sure your voice is heard by the Council, if you are unhappy with the proposals.
Go straight to "Action You Can Take" if you've not got much time or read on for a bit more info
..
The cuts :
- Make it less likely that people will get the services they need eg to have a bath, to have proper meals
- People are then more likely to have to go to hospital due to a crisis, costing tax payers more than if preventative services had been provided in the first place
- 700 people (Council's presumably conservative estimate) will have their services taken away from them (people do not get services unless they REALLY need them you would be shocked if you/your family/ friends were being treated like this)
- Increasing the costs of services eg of home care, from £7.55 an hour to £17.50 an hour, making it more likely that people will refuse services and so lose touch with Social Services
- Reducing respite services to carers, making them more stressed and making it more likely that disabled people will be abused
- Reducing the funding to over 25 local voluntary/ community groups providing services to disabled people and their carers, ranging from 10-50% of current funding, putting some organisations' existence into jeopardy.
Action you can take
To help prevent these proposals going through, please would you sign the online petition at the bottom of http://lambethsos.org.uk/Petition.aspx?UserPage=1 .
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