Care and support of vulnerable adults
Dear Herefordshire Council,
I request to know the following information.
1. How many residential care homes that support adults with autism and learning difficulties are there within Herefordshire County?
2. How many residential care homes that support adults with autism and learning difficulties have individuals that are funded by Herefordshire County at the council’s standard rate?
3. How many adults with autism or learning difficulties in Herefordshire during 2016-2017 had the full cost of their care paid for by Herefordshire Council despite that amount being higher than the usual cost paid?
4. How many of the top-up fees paid through a third party for residential care were or have been unlawful. That is, where the Council has asked for a third party contribution without first carrying out a community care assessment and risk assessment to identify whether need can be met at the Council’s usual cost at another home; and it would be safe to move the service user?
5. How many adults with autism or learning difficulties have been deprived of their liberty in residential care homes unlawfully within Herefordshire and Worcestershire, that is where a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards Order should have been in effect yet was not?
6. How many adults with autism or learning difficulties have been deprived of their Human Rights, in residential care homes unlawfully within Herefordshire and Worcestershire, that is where a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards Order was or is in effect, and any individual was denied of their Article 8, Human Rights?
7. How many adults with autism or learning difficulties in residential care who have funding costs paid for by Herefordshire Council for one to one care share their personal care hours with other service users?
8. How many adults with autism or learning difficulties, have waited more than twelve months for support to access The Court of Protection?
Yours faithfully,
Chris Bury
Dear Sir
Please find attached acknowledgement of your FOI request
Regards
Claire
Claire Jacobs
Information Access Officer
Information Access Team
Economy, Communities & Corporate
Herefordshire Council
Plough Lane | PO Box 4 | Hereford HR4 OXH
“Any opinion expressed in this e-mail or any attached files are those of
the individual and not necessarily those of Herefordshire Council,
Herefordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (HCCG), Wye Valley NHS Trust or
2gether NHS Foundation Trust. You should be aware that Herefordshire
Council, Herefordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (HCCG), Wye Valley NHS
Trust & 2gether NHS Foundation Trust monitors its email service. This
e-mail and any attached files are confidential and intended solely for the
use of the addressee. This communication may contain material protected by
law from being passed on. If you are not the intended recipient and have
received this e-mail in error, you are advised that any use,
dissemination, forwarding, printing or copying of this e-mail is strictly
prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error please contact the
sender immediately and destroy all copies of it.”
Dear Sir
Please find attached response to your FOI request
Regards
Claire
Claire Jacobs
Information Access Officer
Information Access Team
Economy, Communities & Corporate
Herefordshire Council
Plough Lane | PO Box 4 | Hereford HR4 OXH
“Any opinion expressed in this e-mail or any attached files are those of
the individual and not necessarily those of Herefordshire Council,
Herefordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (HCCG), Wye Valley NHS Trust or
2gether NHS Foundation Trust. You should be aware that Herefordshire
Council, Herefordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (HCCG), Wye Valley NHS
Trust & 2gether NHS Foundation Trust monitors its email service. This
e-mail and any attached files are confidential and intended solely for the
use of the addressee. This communication may contain material protected by
law from being passed on. If you are not the intended recipient and have
received this e-mail in error, you are advised that any use,
dissemination, forwarding, printing or copying of this e-mail is strictly
prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error please contact the
sender immediately and destroy all copies of it.”
Dear Access To Information,
Thank you for your limited reply.
I believe, from the data supplied, it indicates a concerning lack of readily accessible information, not least to Herefordshire Council employees who have a legal duty to vulnerable people, but also to an interested party; without first re-assessing any individuals.
From experience, arrangement for re-assessment causing a considerable delay for a vulnerable person, and potentially introducing additional anxiety or distress.
Such allows neglect and abuse of the individual’s rights to continue unnecessarily and unlawfully for any length of time, an example being my brother when he was unlawfully deprived of his liberty by the residential care home H House and Herefordshire Council; having no DoLS in place for a time, and until I involved solicitors.
Similarly, the data indicates to me, Herefordshire Council does not know how many, or for how long they have deprived any vulnerable person the right to access The Court of Protection, in my brother’s case over fourteen months.
I find it difficult to comprehend how Herefordshire Council can promptly identify when any person has not paid an invoice, council tax or the like, yet do not know when vulnerable people that are under their care are unlawfully deprived of their statutory rights, and for how long. In my opinion, an adequate and efficient system of checking should have been in place for far longer than I suspect it has been neglected.
Yours sincerely,
Chris Bury
Dear Sir
Thank you for your email. I have passed your comments onto Adult Social Care for their information
Regards
Information Access Team
Economy, Communities & Corporate
Herefordshire Council
Plough Lane | PO Box 4 | Hereford HR4 OXH
Dear Access To Information,
Thank you for your response.
Only passing my response on to Adult Social Care is, in my opinion, not satisfactory and allows a bad practice and neglect of statutory rights of vulnerable people to continue.
An efficient system should now be constructed and put in place, within a reasonable timeframe to prevent future negligence of individuals statutory rights, with the public reassured that such is in place; and will be actively monitored accordingly.
I request to be informed of the estimated time such a system will be in place and again when this system will be active and monitored; particularly in light of the fact my vulnerable brother's rights were disregarded and neglected by Herefordshire Council, which would have continued for an unspecified time had I not questioned the situation.
I look forward to being informed of the appropriate system, as I am sure many other members of the public would like to be.
Yours sincerely,
Chris Bury
Dear Sir
I'm sorry that you did not find it satisfactory for your comments to be passed onto Adult Social Care. This was done because there was no further response appropriate under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and so it is outside of our remit to deal with the matters that you raised. Adult Social Care are the appropriate department to respond to any such comments, and this is why your comments were passed to Adult Social Care.
Again, regarding your request for a system to be put in place, this does not fall under the remit of the Freedom of Information Act because there is no recorded information held regarding construction of a system and how long that would take. It is more appropriate to pass this to Adult Social Care to provide a response to you, and so your comments have again been passed to them.
Regards
Information Access Team
Economy, Communities & Corporate
Herefordshire Council
Plough Lane | PO Box 4 | Hereford HR4 OXH
Dear Access To Information,
Thank you for your reply.
For the purpose of clarification, do I understand the following correctly?
Over eight years since The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards came into effect, during April 2009, Herefordshire Council has not only neglected to put a system in place but has no available records for how many vulnerable individuals or for how long, such as my brother, were or are being held unlawfully in care homes.
A simple correct or incorrect response will be sufficient, Thank you.
Yours sincerely,
Chris Bury
Dear Sir,
As referenced in the response to your request for information, we do not presently keep our data in a form that separates individuals circumstances by diagnoses.
If it is helpful to you to provide further explanation, we currently have approximately 540 individuals who have been referred to us and are awaiting a DoLS assessment. This number goes up and down depending on how many referrals we receive and how many assessments are completed and authorised in any one day.
Out of these pending assessments we cannot predict how many will result in a determination that the individual lacks capacity and are deprived of their liberty, nor indeed how many of these would prove to be unlawful until they have been assessed.
We recognise as an authority that we hold a waiting list of individuals requiring an assessment and this is a position shared by other authorities across England. Herefordshire Council meets our local and national reporting requirements for Deprivation of Liberty. To understand the context it is important to note that following the Supreme Court ruling in the case of P v Cheshire West and Chester Council and P&Q v Surrey County Council the number DoLS referrals received by local authorities rose tenfold nationally and as a result there were and are still insufficient resources to meet this demand.
In addition there could be cases where an individual has been assessed under DoLS and the best interest assessor comes to the conclusion that the person is deprived of their liberty, but current care arrangements are not in the persons best interest and therefore cannot be authorised under DoLS. In these cases once that determination has been made an unlawful deprivation of liberty would exist until such time that the care arrangements have been changed sufficiently to be in the persons best interest. At the time of writing this response we have no cases that fall into this category.
Mandy Appleby
Head of Safeguarding and Principal Social Worker
Regards
Information Access Team
Economy, Communities & Corporate
Herefordshire Council
Plough Lane | PO Box 4 | Hereford HR4 OXH
Dear Ms Appleby,
Thank you for your reply.
Although informative of the current, assessment procedure and case load, it has not answered the original question posed. Therefore, I have simplified the question, so that other members of the public and I have a straightforward and accurate answer.
When an individual's DoLS has expired, Herefordshire Council does not have a simple and efficient system in place to identify, record or track breaches of said individual's statutory rights; is this correct?
I request a straightforward, correct/incorrect response. Thank you.
Yours sincerely,
Chris Bury
Dear Mr. Bury,
This statement is incorrect. I would like to assure you that Herefordshire Council has policy and procedures in place to respond to Deprivation of Liberty legislative requirements. In addition we ensure that we meet our local and national reporting obligations.
Yours sincerely,
Mandy Appleby
Head of Safeguarding and Principal Social Worker
Dear Ms Appleby,
Thank you for your reply.
Your assurance that Herefordshire Council now has a system in place to identify, recording and tracking breaches of vulnerable individual's statutory rights is duly noted.
Please provide:
1. The date of implementation of the system
2. The name of the system in use
3. The name of the developer/s of the system
I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely
Chris Bury
Yours sincerely,
Chris Bury
Dear Mr. Bury,
All client details, including any identified breaches of statutory rights,
are recorded on an electronic system.
1. The date of implementation of this system was 2008.
2. The name of the system is Mosaic.
3. The name of the developer of the system is Core Logic.
If you have further queries or suggestions for how we can improve our
systems I am happy to meet with you to discuss further, please let me know
when would be convenient for you.
Yours sincerely,
Mandy Appleby
Head of Safeguarding and Principal Social Worker
“Any opinion expressed in this e-mail or any attached files are those of
the individual and not necessarily those of Herefordshire Council,
Herefordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (HCCG), Wye Valley NHS Trust or
2gether NHS Foundation Trust. You should be aware that Herefordshire
Council, Herefordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (HCCG), Wye Valley NHS
Trust & 2gether NHS Foundation Trust monitors its email service. This
e-mail and any attached files are confidential and intended solely for the
use of the addressee. This communication may contain material protected by
law from being passed on. If you are not the intended recipient and have
received this e-mail in error, you are advised that any use,
dissemination, forwarding, printing or copying of this e-mail is strictly
prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error please contact the
sender immediately and destroy all copies of it.”
Dear Ms Appleby,
Thank you for your reply, and most recent supplied information.
However, Having researched the Mosaic system, contacting the developer in the process and sharing my suggestion, I find the previous information provided for assurance is untrue, the software does not track breaches of individual's statutory rights. I would like to know why I was misinformed?
I look forward to a factual and honest reply.
Sincerely
Chris Bury
Dear Sir
Thank you for your email.
Our procedure on internal reviews of FOI's states that "your request should be made within 40 working days after receipt of our response. Unless there are extenuating circumstances, requests made more than 40 days after the response will not be considered". As more than 40 days have passed since our response, and as there are no extenuating circumstances to justify further resource being used on this request, I am unable to accept it for further consideration.
Regards
Anthony Sawyer
Information Access and Records Manager
Information Access Team
Economy, Communities & Corporate
Herefordshire Council
Plough Lane | PO Box 4 | Hereford HR4 OXH
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