Clause 38
Health and Social Care Bill
1:00 pm
Angela Browning (Deputy Chairman, The Conservative Party; Tiverton and Honiton, Conservative)
I had not expected to speak to this clause, but a case with which I have been dealing this morning has prompted me to ask the Minister to consider a particular set of circumstances.
That case—perhaps I should have tabled an amendment as a result of it—involves a learning-disabled woman aged 65 who has been in some form of care or residential care all her life, and who was in residential care in my constituency when the care home closed because of the owner’s age. No one else would take the care home on, so I negotiated with social services and they agreed to move the woman to Hampshire, so that she could live nearer to her only remaining relatives—they did not take on caring for her, although they obviously took an interest. Unfortunately, her carer died in her sleep quite unexpectedly in November, and as an interim measure she went to live with her brother and sister-in-law, who are older than her. Now that she is living with them, the Devon authority paying for her care says that that is where she should stay.
Obviously, I will fight this case through the county council. Is there any way in which we can, in the unfortunate and unexpected circumstance of the sudden death of a named carer, ensure that such an event does not trigger a change to the underlying entitlement to service that the service user had before? Perhaps that is an unfortunate case and I will get a good resolution, but I ask the Minister to consider the context of it. Clearly, Devon county council now sees the death of the carer as an opportunity to reduce its commitment to a lady whom it is paying for out of area.