Social worker refusing urgent care assessment - can I do anything?

mysterywoman10

Yes it's very sad how things are going and the whole matter boils down to lack of resources.

It is a battle for everyone to get the care they need and very worrying for the future.

mysterywoman10

Btw OP as so far from what you say, you have only spoken to the Duty Manager before you put a complaint in writing. Phone back say you are very unhappy and want to make a verbal complaint a) about the Duty Social Worker b) and you want to speak to a Manager.

dazza-mac

mysterywoman10 wrote: »

Yes it's very sad how things are going and the whole matter boils down to lack of resources.

It is a battle for everyone to get the care they need and very worrying for the future.

Hi, Whilst I'm sure you have a point and that lack of resources is a factor and you're absolutely right regarding the worry for the future.

BUT - I truly beleive that a lot of social workers simply view their positions as a way of paying their bills but care, thought and consideration don't play a part with a lot of them.

The meetings I had with social services were a nightmare. I honestly think they must've got their degrees out of a lucky bag and that their certificates must've been written in alphabetti spaghetti!

They wanted my 82 yr old dad with a recently amputated leg to move back into his house and live in his sitting room (for everything, sleep, eat, wash etc). I said it wasn't practical. Without going into all the details or I'll need a haircut by the time I'm finished, I said to the social worker (or the smiling assassin as she came to be known - and I've since heard all kinds of stories from others who had to deal with her), anyway I said, "Look at him, would you want what you're suggesting for your dad?"

Of course she should've been a politician because she wouldn't answer. I kept pressing the question. I knew she wouldn't answer because she obviously wouldn't want that for her dad and she knew I'd then say then why does she think I'd want that for mine.

Eventually she said that her dad was dead. I replied I was very sorry to hear that but she could be rest assured that mine wouldn't be slowly living and dying in a 10ft x 12ft room. I pointed out that you wouldn't treat a hobo's dog they way she was trying to treat my dad and that even a prisoner on death row gets an hour in the exercise yard each day!

I could go on for hours about the disgraceful way my dads been treat. We were just going round in circles and I had to say "what the hell is the man meant to do, pitch a tent!" Eventually they let him stay at the rehab place that he'd been sent to after hospital - but since they changed him from a 'medical care bed' patient to a 'social care bed' patient, it meant he was no longer entitled to physio at the rehab centre and only had 2 short sessions a week at the limb centre. This wasn't enough, plus the physiotherapist accidently hurt his good leg and so he didn't get the full benefit from the few sessions he was getting, and has now been turned down for a limb as they didn't think he was a good candidate.

He worked all his life in hard manual jobs, is a strong man despite his age, even a few weeks before his limb was removed he was still walking to town.

He's not strong because he's sat in his chair all day, every day becoming more and more demoralised. You only have to be inactive for about 3 days before the muscles become quite weak. We're waiting for a second opinion. In the meantime I've asked for some community physio so that when he goes for the second opinion he'll have built some strength up overall. However, this was weeks ago and we're still waiting.

It comes down to lack of money, lack of organisation, too many different departments telling you that it's not their responsibility and then they refer you back to the department that just told you it's not their responsibility!

I cannot understand how this country can send billions each year in foreign aid (all for individual choice re charity - but governments having carte blanche, no) when their own people are suffering due to lack of funds. Plus, people taking on jobs that require care and compassion, logic and common sense - but the candidates applying have none of these.

It's official, I've turned into one of those people you swore you'd never turn into when you where at school with everything looking rosy in your young eyes!

mysterywoman10

I know what you are saying is very true. I've had very bad experiences with Social Workers but I have had positive ones as well.

I've had SW's who have become friends and have literally cried about the way things are going and they are pretty powerless to do anything about it.

I'm loathed to lump them all in one bag and I do think most of it stems from lack of resources, misguided interpretation of policies by government and local authorities.

In the last 3 years things have deteriorated rapidly good specialist Social Work teams have been completely disbanded and they are now expected to be completely generic workers again so the clock has gone back 25 years. This is very sad because so many improvements had been made from when my daughter first went into the system.

You have to understand the conditions Social Services staff are working under are very bad, they mainly in many areas now have no office (apart from hot desking) they are unable to work as a team, they have to use home for working from etc etc. I could go on.

My husband also works for Social Services not as a Social Worker in a specialist Rehab team, it was world renowed for its work. Now it is all but gone, no facilities to bring clients into give training gone. He is so upset and stressed trying to do his job. It was a sad day last week when we attended the funeral of his old boss who himself had a very serious disability and created the service over 25 years ago. It was the end of an era

I shall deeply your concerns about how we are looking after our elderly people in particular and its very worrying because it looks set to get worse. As a nation the only way we can change it is through the ballot box and trying to be more politically active and that isn't easy MP's rarely do anything, local councillors even less.

I've become much more left wing as I've got older, almost a Marxist

shegar

Mysterywoman......I totally understand your post , but its not only the elderly who get pushed around , in my case its my OH and he is only 54 years old, served his country for 16 years , never claimed a penny on the DWP until a devastating stroke took his health away 5 years ago at 49............

Ive had to fight for everything for him , from , DFG, ramps, wheelchairs, care home for respite for me, benefits , etc etc , never been easy dealing with anything to do with his stroke and care needs...........:mad:

And my health is not good , im now having to consider a permanent nursing care home for him , and im shunted about from one office to another , departments all over the place , speak to 3 different officers , then told im still in the wrong one, sends me crazy , spend ages getting through to social services , customer first , never seen such a f*ck up like it , all I ever get told his " cut backs", yea we all have to cut back , so why did Dave Cam give 50 million to another country last week..?....And he cant look after his own ..............:mad:

mysterywoman10

I know it's very hard and it is a fight for everything from beginning to end and sadly the system increasingly works on he/she who shouts loudest. But as a Carer you have no choice but to do that for the sake of your loved one and yourself.

I can't account for Dave giving away 50 million to look good I guess and because although it sounds a lot it isn't really and those people are suffering even more but I can understand why people feel angry about it.

Adult Social Care has always taken the biggest chunk of LA spending and the Elderly make up the largest part of that. The closure of ILF:mad: is going to be the final nail in the coffin from this government, because it really helped care packages for under 60's and now it is going and access to it has been stopped for over 3 years now.

All we can do is keep fighting the fight, join groups like the one I posted on the ATOS thread DPAC, march, email MP's, complain to Councils.

I do find it very depressing and I know if my daughter was still with us she would have been facing the threat of loss of ILF money. The team that was so good to her has been completely disbanded and they were a model of good practice and were joint funded between Health and Social Care.

I've always been in favour of taking Social Care out of Local Authority control and making it part of Health, but then the issue stopping that is the NHS is a free service. Which is why it is so difficult to get CHC they don't have the funds for it.

The other massive problem facing the system is demand and with an increasing elderly population and advances in medical science it is difficult to see how it is going to be paid for. Because they won't raise taxes to do it and people don't want to pay higher taxes.

You will see some who say the family should do everything, they do etc. but that's like putting us back to when the Poor Laws were abolished.

The shortage of social workers has reached critical levels, their targets on closing cases are unworkable, enablement is the latest buzz word. Which basically means the Social Workers must get everyone off a care package after 6 weeks, particularly after a discharge, whether they need the care or not.

Social Services staff face very strict targets and if they don't meet them their pay can be cut or they can be down graded..
It's either that or leave the profession and many are.

pipkin71

outlooks wrote: »

Its quite hard to meet the substantial and critical needs list, you have to be on deaths door basically.

No you don't.

I am not at death's door but meet the criteria for substantial need.

Nebulous2

Nightsong I previously gave you some advice
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/63732373#Comment_63732373

and that still applies. There are a lot of good people working in Social Services, probably the majority, but they are working with a very imperfect system.

What you need to do is learn that system and use it to your advantage. Don't make it personal, don't get hung up on one member of staff, concentrate on what you want as an outcome and keep your focus on that.

Good luck - it's often a big fight, but most people get there in the end.

nightsong

Thank you very much to all the posters, this has turned into a very interesting thread I think as various people have posted their own experiences.

mysterywoman10, your posts are so articulate and moving. It's depressing to hear your experiences. Why is it necessary to destroy good support services that have been built up over so many years, and which work so well?

Nebulous2, thank you. You are right I know, it's a waste of energy to focus on one particular person, we need to keep looking at the big picture. I will look again at what you sent me before.

My only other experience of a social worker came when my son was 19, and about to leave his residential special school. Everyone involved with his case, agreed that he should go to a specialist residential college for severely disabled young people, which was in another county.

Then the social worker who had been assigned to "facilitate his transition" came along. She, in her infinite wisdom, disagreed with the opinion of the specialist college, the school, the doctor, my son and his family. She felt he should go to the local FE college, and spent several weeks doing everything in her power to block his funding to the specialist place. Fortunately, she lost, but not before she had caused a huge amount of stress and upset.

So that's two out of two social workers I have now had contact with that appear to be unintelligent sadists with a God complex. Let's hope the next one is better - third time lucky?

nightsong

Should also have said -

My son's support worker and also someone senior from the advocacy service are keeping up the pressure on SS to do the assessment quickly and have so far got him upgraded from "not at all urgent" to "some priority", (obviously that's not the correct jargon but I don't speak Social Services ) and they haven't finished yet so I am leaving it to them for now to do their work. I'm very grateful to have them doing this - it is much too difficult for a non-expert to negotiate the system effectively..

So many thanks to those who have suggested various courses of action, I will read what you suggest and inform myself in case this becomes necessary.

By the way, I read that government guidelines state -

The assessment process should be started within 48 hours of a referral, completed within 28 days, and any action arising from this should be put in place within another 28 days.

:rotfl: