A Specialist Legal Service for Carers and those they care for
Carers who look after elderly family members or those who are frail, disabled or have learning difficulties face an enormous challenge to obtain the services they need from Social Services and the NHS.
The Carers Legal Centre is a solicitors' firm with many years experience in this area of work. I can help both carers and the person they care for in this complex area of the law.
The organisation is based in the New Forest and can visit clients in the local area, including Bournemouth, Poole, Christchurch, Ringwood, Lymington and Southampton. It is in Central Southern England near the South Coast and in reach of Southern Wiltshire including Salisbury, Dorset, Hampshire and West SussexWhat we can do for you
The Carers Legal Centre has expertise in Community Care (ie Social Services Law), NHS Law, the law relating to mental capacity, Deprivation of Liberty challenges and Probate
For more information call 01425 674844
- Legal Advice
- Lasting Powers of Attorney
- Deputyship Applications to the Court of Protection
- Funding the cost of Care
- Management of Affairs
- Carers who live far away from the person they care for
- Deprivation Of Liberty
- Probate
- Our successes
Legal Advice
When you are faced with what seems like an impossible situation, sometimes all you need is an expert to guide you to a solution.
We will:
- Meet you at your home, in hospital, or at our offices, or discuss your concerns over the telephone
- Review any documents you provide to us
- Analyse your problem
- Prepare an individually drafted advice letter with recommendations for further action
- Discuss our advice on the telephone.
We will do this for a fixed price, so that you will not have an open-ended commitment to pay legal fees
Lasting Powers of Attorney
Anyone who faces the possibility of losing mental capacity should make a Lasting Power of Attorney. An LPA appoints someone you trust to make decisions for you. Separate LPAs may be made for both financial and for welfare matters.
The process of making an LPA is quite involved because it incorporates safeguards to minimise the risk of financial abuse.
We will:
- Meet you and the person who is to grant a power of attorney at home, in hospital, or at our offices,
- Prepare a Lasting Power of Attorney
- At a second meeting, witness the signing of the Lasting Power of Attorney
- Register the Lasting Power of Attorney with the Public Guardianship Office
We will do this for a fixed price, so that you will not have an open-ended commitment to pay legal fees
Deputyship
Where someone has already lost mental capacity, it is often advisable to obtain a court order so that a trusted person, called a “Deputy”, can manage that person's finances and take decisions on their behalf. We can prepare all the necessary papers to make an application to the Court of Protection for a Deputy to be appointed.
Funding The Cost of Care
Caring for elderly and disabled people is expensive. There are several possible sources of funding. Sometimes you may be able to obtain all the care fully-funded by the NHS under Continuing Care. Sometimes funds will be available from your local authority, but on a means-tested basis. Some local authority services can be provided on a discretionary basis, and others are mandatory. It may be possible to obtain funds against the value of your house through an equity release.
Where a person has gone into residential accommodation it is often assumed that his house will be sold to pay for the care.
We will guide you through the continuing care maze but also help you investigate other means of obtaining funding.
And perhaps help you keep the house.
Management of Affairs
If you are elderly or disabled and struggling to cope, it is ideal to have a caring adult son or daughter to look after your affairs. For those who are not lucky enough to have a carer, The Carers Legal Centre can provide a good alternative.
We would appoint a personal legal visitor who has an understanding of the relevant law. The legal visitor would meet you regularly at home to so that he or she would know what is required.
As part of this service, we can administer the person's finances, ensuring that available state benefits are claimed, bills paid, and tax returns submitted. When appropriate, we instruct outside agencies to assist, such as tradesmen, personal carers and social workers. As the person's care needs increase, we do everything possible to enable an elderly person to remain at home, but if a move into residential care becomes inevitable, we carefully choose the best available residential home and manage the sale of the house.
Carers who live far away from the person they care for
Carers sometimes live many miles away from the person they love and care for. If you live in a different city to elderly parents you will be exhausted by the need to travel every weekend to assist your parents, who may often as much need reassurance as they do practical care. The situation can be even worse when the carer lives overseas and a time difference makes it hard to telephone at an appropriate time. It may only be possible to visit on an occasional basis, but you need the reassurance that your loved one is being properly looked after.
The Carer's Legal Centre can help ease your worries. We can take on all the responsibilities which would be carried out by you if only you lived locally, such as
- Arranging for carers,
- Arranging daily visits to a person in their home
- Arranging for home maintenance
- Managing finances
- Arranging equity release to fund care
- Arranging the sale of a house,
- Arranging for a move into a residential or nursing home
- Ensuring that a care home provides good quality care.
We can arrange to meet you on the day you arrive in this country, including at weekends, so that you can make the best use of your limited time.
Deprivation Of Liberty
Sometimes elderly people who have lost mental capacity are required to move into Residential Homes in their own best interests. But mistakes are sometimes made, and it is believed that many people are kept in residential homes against their wishes and without sufficient justification. Since April 2009 Local Authorities have had a duty to ensure that Deprivations of Liberty are justified. The process is imperfect and The Carers' Legal Centre can act for you to challenge unlawful Deprivations Of Liberty.
Probate
We provide an efficient, sensitive and speedy Probate service at a competitive price
Our successes
Hospital under threat of closure
In 2009/10 we acted for the relatives of the patients in a long stay psychiatric hospital on the south coast that was threatened with closure.
Challenging an NHS decision requires a particular legal approach. It is rarely possible to argue that closure is simply unlawful. If you challenge the closure on the grounds that the relevant NHS Foundation Trust is not following the correct public consultation procedures then the best you are likely to achieve is a delay while the correct bureaucratic procedures are followed.
We used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a lot of detail on the obligations of the NHS Trust concerned, and then carefully analysed that information and found out that if the closure went ahead the NHS Trust would be in breach of a particular statutory obligation. This fact had been overlooked by all parties.
We then asked the local MP to place a question with the Health Minister responsible – and soon afterwards the proposed closure was abandoned!
The total legal costs involved for the family members involved were less than £1,000 – far less than the normal legal response of taking the NHS to court, which would have led to legal costs of at least £15,000.
A Speedy Probate
We were instructed by the executors of the estate of Mrs X, who died in August 2009 with an estate of over £1.5 million held in many complex assets. We acted swiftly, and Probate was obtained and the bulk of the assets transferred to family members by early December. Mrs X's family's first Christmas without their mother will not have been pleasant: but at least they did not have any worries that her affairs were not looked after in an efficient fashion.
Reduce stress
The law concerning carers is a complex interplay between Social Services and Health Service Law. Even qualified lawyers find it hard to understand.
It is best to know your legal position, even if it is not favourable!
Mental Capacity
Medical and care staff often pressure carers, stating that the person they care for has lost mental capacity, even when they are able to show close family that they remain able to speak for themselves. We can ensure that the legal tests for mental capacity are rigorously and correctly applied.
Cost of Care Services
Where there is a good prospect of obtaining NHS funded care, we can make sure your case is well prepared. But we can also make sure that even where NHS treatment is not available, you have access to all available local authority funding, some of which is discretionary.
Improved Services
Almost invariably, when a local authority become aware that a carer has instructed a solicitor, the quality of service provided improves!!
About Me: Simon Whipple
- Former Army Officer: served in the Falklands War.
- Qualified as a solicitor in 1998
- Founding Chairman of Surrey Law Centre in 2003
- 12 years experience as a solicitor dealing with private individuals and their needs, especially to obtain appropriate services from local authorities and the NHS
- Founded Carers Legal Centre in early 2009
- The Law should be simple enough for anyone to understand it, and it should be possible for anyone to obtain what they are entitled to without needing a lawyer to act for them.
- Manner of working: “I have always seen my role as to help my client to clarify his long-term objectives (which are not always the same as the presented problem) and then to use whatever method, be it through the law or otherwise, will best help him achieve his goal.”