Disabled campaigners have secured a significant victory over a local authority that threatened to force people with high support needs into residential care.
The grassroots group Bristol Reclaiming Independent Living (BRIL) had secured pro bono legal advice in its battle to persuade the Labour run Bristol City Council (BCC) to abandon its draft Fair and Affordable Care Policy. BRIL had argued that the draft policy breached the Care Act, the Human Rights Act, and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The draft policy (PDF) had said that disabled people could be offered a “residential or nursing home placement” if “a care package to remain at home would substantially exceed the affordability of residential care”, and it had warned that “exceptions” to this policy were “likely to be rare”.
If no agreement was reached about such a placement, the council would only offer funding for direct payments up to the cost of the residential care option, with the disabled person needing to make up the difference themselves to cover the rest of the support they needed to continue living independently at home.
In its response to a council consultation, BRIL said the policy was “fundamentally flawed, likely unlawful, and would cause misery to many disabled people and their family and friends in Bristol”. It said many disabled people had experienced “significant worry and distress” since BCC published its draft policy last year, when Disability News Service (DNS) first reported BRIL’s concerns.
But just days after submitting its response, and following a much-praised column written by disabled journalist Frances Ryan in the Guardian, the council abandoned its policy.
This was confirmed in a letter to Bristol Disability Equality Commission (BDEC) from Cllr Helen Holland, the Labour cabinet member with responsibility for adult social care, who wrote that the council’s cabinet and its mayor had decided that “the policy will not be taken forward at this time”.
She said she had noted “the strong concerns that some Disabled people in our city and nationally have raised” about the council’s draft policy.
However, BRIL said it was still concerned by parts of her letter. They pointed out that disabled people were not to blame for the financial crisis, and despite recognising the harm caused by 14 years of government cuts to local authorities, they said “councils must still make choices with communities, and decisions that are both lawful and in the interests of people they aim to serve”.
They also feared that a proposed working group would not be independent or genuinely co-produced with disabled people as its terms appeared already to have been set by the council. BRIL also warned that the “allocation of support based on budgets, rather than need, may lead to unlawful decisions contrary to the Care Act 2014” and that by setting up an ‘inquiry’ led and controlled by themselves, with hand-picked representatives, is clearly an attempt to shut down any genuine dialogue or co-production.
Cllr Holland has since asked BDEC’s chair, Alun Davies, to set up a new group that would “consider how to build a system to fairly allocate Adult Social Care funding within the agreed budget to meet the diverse needs of the population”.
BRIL would like to thank everyone all over the country for their support and hope it will make other local authorities work in partnership with disabled people before doing anything that may harm their quality of life.
Read the full story in Disability News Service courtesy of John Pring – Editor.
NB: BRIL’s response to the consultation had included a legal position based on pro bono advice from Oliver Lewis and Alice Irving, barristers at Doughty Street Chambers.
Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software
Rishi Sunak is standing holding a glass of champagne. Alongside of him are two people representing care homes. They are both holding up a glass of champagne whilst sitting on large bags of money. A sign on the wall reads ‘Care homes for the disabled – nothing about them without us’. Sunak is saying to them: “Here’s to maintaining the status quo!”. One of the care home owners replies: “Cheers”.
Crippen Cartoons 