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Islington Tribune - by TOM FOOT
Published: 13 February 2009

Patient’s claim: ‘Health care cuts have robbed me of my dignity’

A DISABLED woman from Holloway says she has been made to feel like a “useless cabbage” after Islington health chiefs axed funding she was using to pay her carers.
Valerie Garnham, from Hungerford Road, claims the move has robbed her of her “dignity and autonomy” and is challenging Government health policy in the High Court this week.
The 60-year-old, who has suffered from a degenerative muscular condition and has been confined to a wheelchair for all her life, has previously employed her own team of carers using “direct payments” from NHS Islington.
But the system of providing cash allowances to patients has been axed by the Department of Health.
Mrs Garnham said: “I felt this was very prejudiced and against my human rights. This stole all my autonomy in organising my own life.
“I received a letter completely out of the blue. It said as I was classed as needing continuing care and due to recent Government changes the PCT could no longer provide direct payments.”
She added: “I don’t look at myself as a useless cabbage sitting at home wasting away but that is how it made me feel.”
Mrs Garnham employed six carers using cash payments from Islington Council until 2002 when her needs became more acute and her care became the responsibility of Islington Primary Care Trust.
NHS Islington is now refusing to fund her care in this way because “direct payments” are no longer available to NHS patients with “continuing health needs”.
It is offering to provide its own agency carers and care plan instead.
Under the 2006 NHS Act, direct payments can be made to disabled people aged 16-or-over to help with cost of coping with short-term ailments.
A Department of Health spokesman said they are not available to patients with “continuing healthcare needs” and carers employed outside an NHS care plan must be paid for out of a patient’s own pocket.
Mrs Garnham’s barrister Paul Bowen, of Doughty Street chambers, argues this amounts to “discrimination” and that Islington health chiefs have made an “erroneous interpretation” of the 2006 Act.
NHS Islington said they would comment after the case ends today (Friday).

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