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Camden New Journal - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 6 September 2007

Campaign against means tests for poor and frail

• WHEN the new administration was elected it promised that it would not increase the level of council tax.
Now the council wants to keep its promise by charging some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the borough for care services which until now have been free.
The Campaign Against Care Charges (CACC) is a campaign made up of service users and disability rights activists. We are opposed in principle to people having to pay for care services that help disabled and elderly people to manage their everyday lives with the independence and dignity that others take for granted.
We are further dismayed by the way in which the local authority has conducted itself with regards to this process.
Service users have been forced to go through demeaning means tests.
Many have been bewildered by the letters they have received, and terrified by threats to charge people huge amounts if they don’t co-operate with the means test.
We have been astonished to hear that the means testers try to make appointments for Saturdays when no other social service appointment would take place, bar emergencies. As a result of all this we feel that if the council insists on going ahead with this grossly unfair process then the very least it should do is to provide each individual with an independent advocate to represent their interests, rather than those of the local authority
We advise anyone going through this process to insist that they will only agree to an appointment if an independent professional advocate is present.
We also advise anyone who has been through the process, but is unhappy with the way it was conducted or its outcome to insist that there be a new assessment made with an independent advocate present.
For further information please email to: discharge07@ googlemail.com
discharge07@google mail.com or phone 07726 533287.
BEN HALL
Rona Road, NW3

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, Camden New Journal, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@camdennewjournal.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Tuesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number. Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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