Professionals swapping capacity decisions, not consistent.

[TPrider]

My daughter who is 32 has learning issues. She is painfully suggestable which makes her vulnerable. We know her really well and can tell when an answer is unreliable and will try various different methods to try and get the question better understand and the answer more thought out. Sometimes it apparent she just does not get something.

Occasionally she can give a very positive answer to something and yet, it's not what she actually want, she is just being extra eager to please especially when she feels uncomfortable with someone.

Her younger sister and me both have LPA for her covering all aspects with the finance element being active already and the health and welfare as and when she lacks capacity.

I negotiated a hugely increased budget for her care earlier this year from a little over £36k to £160k. She is supposed to get 1/1 care 24/7 and the option to go to a day centre 5 days a week. I am paid this by way of direct payments which goes to the ones providing the care.

The company which provides her daily care also run the centre.

Had a meeting with the care manager a few months back. She said that my daughter lacked capacity hence why it was OK to chat without her. We discussed issues with the care provider. Things such as waking night staff going to bed all night, staff taking my daughter back to their house. Shifts being started and ended at the day centre making it impossible for my daughter not to attend.

When we were told she lacked capacity we asked the provider to slowly reduce her visits to the centre getting to two days a week and increasing activities away from that location. We also asked for them to explain the staffing issues.

The social worker advised I give them notice of 28 days to improve or quite. I said I'd rather deal with it more informally initially.

Within a week the provider came back to me saying that, in 'their' opinion my daughter did really want to keep going 5 days a week. She said that she didn't know what a LPA was but, because of that she had sent an email to the Office of Public Guardianship and would ignore the LPA until she heard back.

We contacted the care manager expecting some support. What we got for weeks was ghosted. We knew she was working she just would not respond to us regardless of how we tried to contact her.

Eventually, I put together a huge dossier of evidence clearly showing we were told that capacity was not there to reliably make decisions with regard to whether she went to the centre or not and also all the messages which remained unanswered plus the messages from the provider saying they were not going to deal with that.

I did not get an acknowledgement with 3 days as I should have from a hand delivered envelope and only when I chased them and proved I delivered it did they respond 28 days later to say that having spoken to their very senior and experienced social worker they wanted to not deal with the complaint now because they actually wanted to look into revoking the LPA, explore the arrangements regarding her finances, look into her tenancy and provide an advocate.

They said that once they had done all that we were welcome to submit another complaint but that, following their own rules, it could not be about the same thing.

I wrote back and asked for an appeal and, once again, received no reply.

Wrote to the ombudsman who initially said they would deal with it and then said, I'd not followed the complaints procedure so they wouldn't deal with it. I replied back again with the written evidence that I had followed the procedure to the letter and still nothing.

So, we have no idea what to do. I will be honest. I am rapidly approaching 60 and my health has been very poor for 8 years now. I genuinely do not feel I have the energy to fight this right now and my youngest who also has the LPA likewise has some serious stuff going on and also feels that fighting what seems to be a battle we cannot win, is beyond her.

Any questions or suggestions gratefully received.

[AES71]

Hi, I’m sorry I cannot help with a useful response for you but I completely understand how you must be feeling. My daughter is 21 and sounds very similar to your daughter, eager to please even though she may not have fully understood something. As a family, we know when to check if she has fully understood.

I really hope someone will be able to help you with some useful suggestions and wish you well.

Kind regards.

[learner01]

You absolutely need to get a solicitor who is experienced in dealing with this sort of thing. They will be able to take the burden of dealing with this from you. cascaidr.org.uk is a charity that helps with legal advice. Irwin Mitchell is a firm of solicitors that deals with disability issues. There are others too, such as Leigh Day. Your daughter may be eligible for legal aid. Do get some advice. A solicitor can write letters on your behalf and advise and support you.

[FELTSPAR]

Hi,

The best course is likely to be finding a solicitor with space to take your case. It seems to me that you need a solicitor that specialises in public law and human rights.

Try:

Mack law.Co.U.K.

Www.Leigh day.Co.U.K.

Www.Scomo.com

Www.Bindmans.com

If funds allow, employ an independent professional to do a capacity assessment, many professionals can do this, including a psychologist, speech and language therapist, social worker etc.

If you employ an independent social worker, then perhaps they could help in more general terms in addition to the capacity issue.

The reason the LPA might be challengeable is because if your daughter lacks capacity, then she doesn’t have the capacity to sign the LPA. Instead, Deputyship needs to be applied for from the Court of Protection. However, it’s good that the Office of the Public Guardian has said that the LPA is sound, therefore I maybe wrong on this, but I would explore further, to stay ahead of the game.

The records you have kept will be very useful evidence when talking to the court of protection, office of the public guardian, solicitor, LGSCO and independent professionals etc. Keep up the good work.

None of these appalling attitudes and the resulting treatment of your daughter or to you as her advocate will stand up in a court of law I’m sure. This needs sorting out now for the very long term.

Neither the provider, nor social care are acting in your daughters best interests, that is a serious failure in their duty of care and must be challenged.

As to the complaint, the local authority cannot just refuse to deal with it, try going back to the ombudsman and ask if, in face of your evidence, they can intervene to force the local authority to act on the complaint, keep going back to the LGSCO and keep them updated on events.

Also, try your local MP, who may be able to prompt the local authority to respond to their duties.

I wish you great success, you are clearly very capable having already ensured an appropriately funded package of care and support for your daughter, it just needs to be used with a provider focussed on your daughters needs not its own!

Kind Regards

[TPrider]

Thanks for the information so far. I tried some local solicitors who didn't even reply to me to say they were not interested including the ones I'd used for years.

I'll go through the lists over been given here. I much prefer referrals from those who have experience.

My daughter has loads of money. We believe we would be within our rights as LPA but with her full involvement to pay for what needs paying for and go for legal aid where appropriate.

Thanks again

[learner01]

I agree with Feltspar although I don’t have the same confidence they have in the ombudsman having found their staff apparently ignorant of the law when trying to get help for an elderly relative who was being financially abused. I had no legal advice or solicitor at the time and looking back that was a mistake. I really do think you need a good solicitor and the larger campaigning firms like Leigh Day will probably have more experience than your local ones in things like human rights, false allegations etc unless a local one has a particular interest in those areas of law.

If care staff are being dishonest perhaps you should record any conversations with them so that you have evidence of what really took place.

[TPrider]

Thankfully the care provider are really quite good at writing things down saving me a whole lot of effort.