HELP REQUIRED PLEASE READ!!!!

9th Feb 2016 – 12th Mar 2016

Life passes by very quickly, I cannot believe how fast the last few weeks have passed me by, it feels like only yesterday that I posted my last blog!

My placement is still going very well, it is taking up a lot of my time and energy, however, on a personal basis, it will be really worth it, it will be an achievement for me, especially given that I am not really academic.

My mum is doing well. I am still struggling with the fact that she is practically exiled at home and that I believe that the Local Authority are paying more for her to be at home than they would if she attended her day care centre. From my workings and based on just the support for me to attend my placement and not the personal hygiene support, it appears that the Local Authority are paying around £112.00 a day for my mum to be stuck at home, rather than, £44.22 a day for my mum to be included in her community, where she would obtain constant stimulation and have the company of others similar to herself.

If my calculations are correct this means that if I worked or became a volunteer for 4 days a week for a year the Local Authority would pay around £23.408 a year to isolate my mum, rather than £9241.98 a year, to have her included in her community. The difference being £14,166.02, which to me indicates that the Local Authority are happy for the tax payer to pay £14,166.02 extra for my mum to be practically exiled at home.

It really makes no sense. To add to this there is the stress and sadness that I, as my mums full-time carer, feels, knowing that she is missing out on all the stimulation and company she would receive if she were at the day care centre.

I heard back from the Ombudsman regarding my complaint about the £56.90 a week transport costs and the £7000 arrears that my Local Authority initially said my mum owed them. The Ombudsman called me and said that they did not think they could deal with my complaint and that they were going to be writing to my Local Authority to ask if my complaint should have went to a council review committee. I was totally shocked to hear this.

Later I received another call from the Ombudsman, I missed the call. The lady from the Ombudsman left me a message and it sounded as though she said that the Local Authority had responded to them and that they have some positive news!

I called the Ombudsman back the next day, I felt all elated and I was looking forward to hear what the positive news was. Once again I was shocked, I was told that my complaint was going back to the Local Authority and was going to go through a council review committee (what ever on earth that is!). That elation I felt quickly disappeared and I thought to myself ‘who’s the positive news for, it certainly does not feel as though it is for me’, maybe I misheard and the word that was used was not ‘positive’. I listened to the message a few times and the word I kept hearing was positive, it did sound a bit distorted, however, the whole process feels distorted to me.

Given my second shock, I am unclear as to what the rest of the conversation was. I think the lady from the Ombudsman said that once my complaint goes through the council review committee I would no longer be able to send my complaint back to them. However, I could complain about the Local Authorities complaint procedure. I will need to check this because I do not understand why my complaint cannot go back to the Ombudsman, if I am not happy with the outcome. If this is true, I am wondering if I am now being penalized for the Local Authority not following through with their own policies and procedures!

Poor mum, poor me, my poor children and poor carers in general, what a process to put a person through. I do not really want to be going through all this at the moment or at any time. I only want to be able to care for my mum, my children, I want to focus on my placement and also my studies and I want to manage to keep my house in order. It is so difficult juggling all these different things around, never mind the added stress, impact and pressure of fighting for the rights of my mum to be treated equally in our society and to be respected for what she has given to society during her life time, before she became unwell.

I will now have to start compiling all my information again and working out how I am going to represent my case/complaint to the council review committee, this will be a full-time job for me. What positive news! I will have to sit in front of a panel of three people and give evidence regarding what I feel has went wrong and the impact that it has had on my family and I. How difficult this is going to be as it is personal and emotional for me to verbally talk about the issues.

My Local Authority wrote to me regarding the council review committee and it sounds like I am going to court. I can have witnesses, a solicitor, I can not complain about anything else other than my original complaint, I am to return my initial response by the 18th of March, and in what appears to be a generic letter they have explained to me that they understand how at times people working with SWS (Social Work Services) sometimes get a sense of dissatisfaction – how patronizing is that? It has been explained that as well as myself and the committee members my Local Authority will provide a representative who can also call witnesses and provide evidence.

I dread this as well as embrace it.

I was taken into hospital a few weeks back – no wonder! I had developed severe stomach ache, the same as I had last year. I wonder if my health is suffering due to stress and anxiety from the mixture of things I am dealing with. I believe that the doctors are thinking that it may be auto immune disease of the pancreas, they thought that the last time, however it quickly moved onto the possibility of a tumour because I had a high level of Chronogranin A in my blood.  This time it was a raised level of immuglobin. This will mean more tests, more scans and more appointments – when will it end?

I am now eagerly hunting for someone who could provide bar pro bono work to help me represent my case to the council review committee – if there is anyone out there able to do this or who knows of someone who may be willing to provide this I would appreciate if you got in touch. I am at a stage that I need help, so someone please help……………………

Please share my blog with others so that others can get visual of it.