Camden New Journal - Letters: Heating

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Camden New Journal - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 1 November 2007

Vulnerable left unable to pay for heating or food

• THANK you John Gulliver for caring and exposing the scandal of what elderly and disabled people in Camden are currently been subjected to (What has it come to when the elderly fear the council? October 25)
What is happening needs to be fully investigated and exposed. There has been a wall of silence from the council. In August one of our members filed a complaint under the council’s complaints procedure and, as yet, still has not received a response.
In the interim, threatened that they would have to meet the full cost of their care package if they refused to co-operate, many have been coerced into having a financial assessment “interview”.
Some have been billed without an interview and charged the full amount for their care, leaving them without the means to buy food or heat their homes.
We have had statements from elderly, disabled and visually impaired people frightened by unpleasant, intrusive questioning lasting up to two hours, leaving them traumatised and in tears.
In conjunction with this financial assessment there is also a “care review” yet more interviews supposedly under the government’s Fair Access to Services criteria. There has been little evidence of fair access in Camden. The task of reviewing everyone’s care package in Camden has been subcontracted to a firm of private consultants under the name of Reviewing Solutions.
Interviews, with no apparent monitoring procedure, have been carried out by Reviewing Solutions expressly to reduce the cost of care packages in Camden.
It is the elderly and disabled in Camden who are being bullied into submission and paying the true price of cost cutting services – a process which is underhand and shameful from a council which prides itself on being caring.
There appears to be a great deal of secrecy surrounding what is happening to those who are being assessed.
We have not been told the cost of this whole assessment process or, indeed, how much the Reviewing Solutions consultancy fee is.
What happens to fees collected by the council? Will any real savings will be made and, if so, at what price?
Does it have to take major injury or death for the council to respond or is it really the case that our lives are worthless?
EVELYN McNALLY
For and on behalf of Campaign Against Care Cuts

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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