|
|
 |
| |
Marian Burke with Muffin the cat |
Snoopers warned: 'Keep Out'
Pensioner pledges to fight care charges as anger mounts
over bank checks
FINANCIAL assessors trawling through the savings accounts of Camden’s most vulnerable residents to determine if they must pay care charges have been warned they will not be allowed into some homes.
The New Journal revealed last week how officials – labelled “retirement snoopers” – have begun searching bank accounts and spending records to assess who should pay for home visit care services used by disabled and elderly people. Home helps have traditionally been free.
With the process of checking thousands of accounts still in progress, residents insisted on Monday that they would not submit to means-testing.
Marian Burke, 66, who lives in a council flat in Dartmouth Park Avenue, Tufnell Park, said: “They are plugging the holes of their own inefficiency. I told them to get lost and there’s no way I will let them in.”
Ms Burke suffers from osteoarthritis and needs a carer to help her bathe and clean her flat.
She said: “I’m a strong person and I’m determined to fight this. They’re targeting disabled, vulnerable people. But I’ve got all my faculties and they’re not going to get the better of me.”
There is similar defiance across the borough. Ann Jones, 49, who lives in Hampstead Road, Euston, was forced to quit her job as an office assistant early after developing multiple sclerosis. She is visited four times a day by carers – a service which allows her to stay in her own home.
“They are picking on the weak,” said Ms Jones. “I don’t have anything to hide but I don’t want them knowing numbers because your bank account is your own private business, isn’t it?”
The scandal was exposed last week by former Camden mayor Ray Adamson, who lives in Gospel Oak. He has already been assessed and told he has to pay more than £50 a week for carers.
While the threshold for fees is advertised as being set at £30,000, Mr Adamson’s modest savings are short of that figure and he can’t understand why he is being hit with the new demands.
He is registered blind and struggles with mobility after a stroke.
Mr Adamson said: “We can’t just say we are not going to let them in because they will just turn around and say that you won’t get the care then. And I can’t afford not to have the care.”
Conservative social services chief Councillor Martin Davies said yesterday (Wednesday): “Despite putting an extra £6 million into care services last year, it is an unfortunate reality that the council has to ask residents who can afford it to contribute towards the cost of their care and support. If we did not, we could not provide the range of help we currently offer.”
He added: “The government does not provide all the money we need to provide these services. The limited resources we do have must go where they are most needed.
“The new charges also mean we can provide important new services to keep residents living independently and maintain their well-being.
“These assessments may seem intrusive. However, take the example of someone who has mobility problems and has to use taxis when they go out. Knowing this, we can allow for that extra spending when we work out their ability to pay any social care charge.” |
 |
|
| |
|
|
|
