HUNDREDS of people in need of support have either scrapped or scaled-back their care arrangements since Cumbria County Council began its controversial home care charging scheme, according to a newly-formed coalition of advice agencies, writes Beth Broomby.

More than 20 such groups have banded together to create the Cumbria Coalition on Home Care Charging (CCHCC), which aims to take CCC social services to task over the new charges. The group arranged a special meeting with CCC social services representatives following claims CCC and Social Services had refused to talk to agencies or listen to local people on the issue of Home Care charging.

Disability Action South Lakes boss Mark Tenant told the Gazette the meeting had had some positive effects.

He said: "I don't think they (CCC) were aware of the strength of feeling out there or the range of issues which Home Care charging throws up."

He said CCC had agreed to revise its advice to staff and users to ensure people were aware of all the ways in which they could offset expenses against charges, hopefully making services more affordable.

The authority said it would be open to reassessing individual care charge bills if clients had a query and has also agreed to attend a series of follow up meetings to discus progress last Friday and in September.

The CCHCC, which includes various Age Concern and Citizens Advice Bureau branches across the county as well as other bodies such as Disability Action South Lakes and South Lakeland Voluntary Society for the Blind, claims that more than 250 people have ended or reduced their home care packages in the six months or so since home care charges were introduced.

This, they say, gives the lie to the councils' claim that the introduction of charges has been trouble-free and that there is nothing to fear from the new policy. Mr Tennant said: "Although we accept that home care charging was probably inevitable in that it was always going to happen, it is by no means working fairly at the moment."

The main problem, he said, was that means testing for home care charging was not being applied in a standard way across the county and

people in different parts of Cumbria were being treated

differently.

"There are great improvements that could be made in some areas but they (CCC) do not seem to be rushing to seek the advice from the people who deal with disability issues day in and day out," he said.

CCC media manager Brian Hough said: "There is no evidence to substantiate the claim that 250 people or however many might have decided to cut the number of hours they receive in home care because they cannot afford to pay."

But he also said it was fair to say that, following assessment of everybody in receipt of home care services in the county, some had seen their care hours reduced, but others had had seen them increased.

l The coalition has also expressed concerns about how Cumbria County Council would spend the estimated £6million expected from home care charges.

Government guidelines suggest that money should be ploughed back into improving social services. But the CCHCC said there had been suggestions the money might be used to pay the bed-blocking bill expected when the NHS starts charging social services for failing to find places for elderly people to recuperate after treatment in hospital.

April 30, 2003 09:30