URGENT MEETING DEMANDED OVER CARE CRISIS

Two Shropshire Councillors have called for a urgent Special Meeting of the Shropshire Council’s Health and Adult Social Care Committee after damning findings Local Government Ombudsman about the Council’s handing of adult social care funding in the County.
Heather said: “These verdicts reflect what we have been experiencing right across the County. The Council is squeezing the vulnerable and their families for every penny they can get for social care which in many cases should be free.
“Shropshire Council has been drastically restructuring Adult Social Care over the last few years to save money. We are now in a position where disabled and elderly people and their families are seriously suffering across the County as a result of the Council’s implementation of the criteria for delivering care.
The Ombudsman states in her report of May 2014 (p19 Local Government Ombudsman Review of Adult Social Care Complaints for 2013. See attached.) ‘That Councillors should be aware of the numbers of complaints, the outcomes and the learning achieved from them. We, as Councillors, need now to look at all these complaints in some depth now and this one in particular.”
Earlier this week the Local Government Ombudsman, Dr Jane Martin, published a public notice in the local press on ‘Maladministration by Shropshire Council’ quoted a number of failings and stated that: “This case casts further doubt on the Council’s ability and commitment to treat complaints fairly and put matters right where it has made mistakes.”
Cllr Tracey Huffer (Ludlow East) added: “We are facing a real crisis in the care of some of our most vulnerable residents a situation made much worse by the Council’s mistakes. In my Ward one resident was assessed by the Council and told that she would require nursing care for the rest of her life and she was moved to a nursing home. After giving up the tenancy on her home the Council re-assessed her and said she no longer needed nursing care. Their ineptitude had made her homeless and they were only initially willing to place her in a care home either far from her family and not suiting her needs. This is by no means the only case I have heard of.
This comes on top of the Ombudsmans report in 2011 which told the Council that top up fees for Care residents where illegal and the Council had to pick