PPlog

Just to consolidate what I’m saying to Norfolk County Council, these are the basic requirements. These requirements were operative from 1st April 2008. The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, Section 228 (Transitional arrangements) says“ ”(1) When a local authority becomes subject to the duty in section 221(1), it also becomes subject to the following duty. (2) That duty (“the temporary duty”) is to ensure until the relevant time that there are means by which the activities specified in section 221(2) can be carried on in the local authority’s area.“ Section 221(2) referred to above says: ”(2) The activities for a local authority’s area are— (a) promoting, and supporting, the involvement of people in the commissioning, provision and scrutiny of local care services; (b) enabling people to monitor for the purposes of their consideration of matters mentioned in subsection (3), and to review for t...

I’ve just posted my comments to the review. They are (in essence). As a social worker at the time, directly involved in the provision of social care, I would submit that the rot started when Thatcher began to privatise social care in the 1980s. Before then we should all remember social care was a social right - services, including residential services, directly provided by each local authority. Local Authority direct provision under the National Assistance Acts was by no means perfect but it certainly did not involve private companies scrabbling for profit out of people’s care needs. The only civilised and humane way of delivering social care needs is to remove commerce from the equation. Obviate financial profiteering on the backs of people’s misfortunes.

Today’s letter to Norfolk county Council (see blog entry 30.04.08.): Head of Law, Norfolk County Council, County Hall, Martineau Lane, Norwich, Nr1 2UU. Hello. Formal Complaint 2nd attempt. I sent the attached formal complaint dated 30.04.08. On that same day. The letter was sent 1st class and Mr Hayman’s office would have received it the next day. The letter was not marked confidential nor did it have any other marking. Your complaints policy states: “The complaint will be acknowledged by letter or email within five working days of receipt of the complaint by the Council. The standard for giving a substantive response is 15 working days from the date of acknowledgement. The target for meeting this standard is 95% of complaints. The acknowledgement letter will include an explanation as to the action being taken and by whom.” I have received no acknowledgement. The official LINks Guide No 7 says: “The Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Ac...

I have also written to Norfolk LINks: David Hayman, LINks Lead, Norfolk County Council, County Hall, Martineau Lane, Norwich, NR1 2UU. Hello Mr Hayman. Formal Complaint On 21.09.07. I contacted the Norfolk Links Lead Person (not you at that time) to ask: “Can I please ask you to include me in any meetings you organise and to include meeting venues accessible to people who live in this area. I live in an area of Norfolk generally socially excluded from most community development activities and too many of those activities turn out to be Norwich-centric - not easily accessible for those hard to reach people with disabilities. My address is: (as above) Between then and the end of March this year I was in regular touch with you expressing a keen interest and asking to be kept informed. On 24.03.08. I mailed you saying: “As the 31st and the demise of PPI Forums approaches, you must by now have the interim body in place to continue necessary work... can you please let me have de...

Dame Jane Campbell is Chair of the EHCR Disability Committee. Guardian Society today published a feature by her which is essential reading. For years I have known her as one of the ‘goodies’ and my admiration and respect for her says that she would not betray her role. I have then written to her in response to her speech: Dame Jane Campbell, Chair, EHCR Disability Committee, 3 More London, Riverside Tooley Street, London, SE1 2RG Hello Dame Jane. This letter is in response to the extract from your Cambridge speech printed in Guardian Society today. I would like to say at the start that since, as a then active member of the BASW Mental Health Special Interest Group, I heard you speak at a BASW AGM fringe meeting at Malvern many years ago, you have been something of an icon for me and your words encouraged and stimulated my broader interests in disability rights and independence and greatly reinforced my belief in the value of service user involvement. In the Guardian Societ...

I have to record my sadness at the passing of a great artist. Humph has been with me for most of my life: from teen years in the early 1950s when I was disk jockey at our youth centre and his Fish Seller and The Martinique were particular favourites. I used to whistle a separate clarinet obligato to his records long before I could actually play the instrument. His mates were also formative influences in my own playing: Wally Fawkes - Trog, the creator of the cartoon, Flook, Bruce Turner - still one of the UK’s most creative alto sax players and, of course, one of his own influences with whom he later had a brief but productive partnership: Buck Clayton. And an enormous saving feature of Humph’s bands which gave much needed relief from pain (like ceasing to rub your knees against a brick wall) - he didn’t use a banjo!!!!! Humph has given nothing but pleasure. From his playing; from his bandleading; from his composing; from his arranging; from his writing; and from hi...

I’ve been quiet for a while - weary of the vacuous and sometimes downright deceitful words of government and their QUANGOS and angry at public body tokenism which cynically exploits the good will of volunteers and service user involvement. The catalyst to this state of mind was finding out that the Norfolk Police Disability Forum of which I was Chair and which had carried so much optimism about public body intentions for me has been either disregarding the Forum altogether or using it as a token reason for them doing the minimum to comply with Disability Discrimination legislation: - they had to engage with disabled people by law so they have done this by setting up their Disability Forum and then (again under the cover of fine, empty words) have just left it to ‘talk amongst itself’ whilst functions it was set up to perform just bypass it and nil resources are allocated to it. I resigned. And there are many indications that some local authorities, PCTs and hospital trusts are also doi...