General > Assisted Gardening
Please Read and Help
betula:
Well said ;D
GRACELAND:
--- Quote from: The Gaffer on November 19, 2010, 21:07:04 ---Just to clarify what the issue is here...
If you are a disabled person of working age and you are living in residential care then your needs will be extremely high - basically if you didn't need pretty much constant support, then you wouldn't be in residential care in the first place. Someone with an "arthritic knee" will not be in a care home.
Residential care is also very expensive, so either you will have to pay the full costs (on average something like £1000 per week) to cover the costs, or if you can't then any money that you do have (in savings, or in income) will be taken to help pay the costs. You don't have a choice over whether the money is taken or not, it is automatically taken by the Council to help meet their costs. The only income that you are allowed to keep is what is called a 'personal expenses allowance' - which is just over £20 a week, and, if you are elligible, mobility component of DLA - which is either about £20 or about £50 a week, depending on which rate you receive. Councils are specifically excluded from being able to take that money.
So let's assume that any one of us had an accident tomorrow that left us needing 24 hour care, and we ended up living in residential care. Of course we'd know our lives had changed, but we'd probably want to keep doing at least some of the things that we do now - working, gardening, trip to the pub, occasional trip to the cinema, get out to see family and friends, maybe even a holiday. But if we are able to keep working, unless you earn more than about £1000 per week, then any income you make will be taken to fund your care - you won't actually get to keep any of it. And getting to work is going to be pretty tricky if you can't even afford the electric wheelchair you now need to move about independently.
Luckily there are schemes to allow you to use your DLA mobility component to get an electric wheelchair. Luckily you can use your DLA mobility component to occasionally pay for a taxi to get to the allotment. Luckily DLA mobility component can go towards funding a properly accessible car you can use to get around. Luckily DLA mobility component means that you can contribute to the care home running a regular minibus service. Luckily you can just about afford to buy something once in a while, because your DLA mobility means that you can cover your extra travel expenses and use your personal expenses allowance to get some clothes, or a Christmas present for someone in your family.
But from October 2012, you won't have that any more - because that's what this proposal means. You will have £20 a week to cover everything. You can't afford the electric wheelchair, because it costs over £1000. Even if you have the wheelchair, if there isn't a fully accessible bus near your home you can't really get anywhere on your own any more except by accessible taxi, which means your £20 is basically gone.
I guess you just give up on doing things independently any more. You just have to hope that you have a good care home that supports you well, or a family who will buy an accessible car that you can travel in and who will come round whenever you need. You just have to accept that you are now totally reliant on other people to go anywhere. You go out of the house when someone takes you, and that's it.
Being independent is a pretty big thing - that's why life in prison is the harshest legal penalty we can impose. I'm not saying that this is the same as prison, of course it isn't, but I just hope that people understand what this change could mean for someone's independence, simply because they need to use residential care. And I hope they'll then agree that this really isn't a reasonable, fair or progressive cut. This is something that as a civilised, caring society, we just shouldn't be cutting.
--- End quote ---
:D :D :D
WELL SAID
Thank you
betula:
Been listening today that Mr Cameron wants to spend two million pounds on surveying our level of happiness ??
Strange but true........
So glad he has his priorities right. ::)
Digeroo:
My disabled daughter lives in a residential home and is threatened with loosing this allowance. It is used for so many things. Getting to hospital appointments, podiatry appointments, coming home for the weekend, transport on holiday, repairs to mobility equipment. None of it is wasted and none of it is abused. She cannot drive and she cannot just jump on a bus. How will she get out and about?
If you have a special car you cannot use free parking unless the disabled person is in the vehicle.
The local authority are also trying to reduce the amount of fees they pay. They seem to expect the staff to be on the minumum wage. Yet she is very vulnerable and the staff need to be specially trained and need to be very capable.
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