Christmas Message to Professional Deputies & Private Client Solicitors
Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and thanking you for all of your instructions in 2018.
We have very much enjoyed working with you to achieve positive results for your clients and service users. I thought it would be interesting for you to receive a round-up of some of our team’s Community Care and Education Law work this past year. This includes:
- Providing expert reports and opinions prior to Personal Injury settlements being made, reviewing your client’s potential eligibility for future health and social care funding to assist with negotiations and preparations for trial.
- Carrying out Professional Deputy Audits, looking into P’s entitlements to state benefits, Local Authority funding and advice on double recovery. Many clients have benefitted from an increase in their care package and also a decrease in their personal expenditure on care fees. Please refer to our FAQ on state funding and benefits for people with care needs for more information.
- Representing Professional Trustees at Best Interest and safeguarding meetings where there are care planning disputes and unfounded financial abuse allegations by your client’s relatives.
- Advising Professional Deputies on care funding disputes with guidance on how to increase the level of Local Authority funding for clients.
- Reviewing your client’s care package after your client has received a Personal Injury award and auditing their Continuing Health Care (CHC) eligibility, entitlement to benefits and completing a review of their care package. Further, advising Deputies as to how they can ensure that their client receives care and support funded by the Local Authority.
- Successfully representing Professional Deputies and Attorneys at NHS CHC Local and Independent Panel meetings. For example, Cate won a retrospective case covering care fees from 2014 and successfully argued that the same service user remained eligible for CHC at the Local Resolution Panel meeting. This saved the client thousands of pounds in backdated and ongoing care costs.
- Advising Private Client teams on a number of individuals’ section 117 aftercare funding eligibility, the legal options for obtaining reimbursements and assisting with settling s117 cases.
- Continuing to provide professional Executors with advice on NHS CHC retrospective reviews, preparing for Appeal meetings and attending on the Executor’s behalf.
- Advising Professional Deputies on the merits of challenging a Children’s Continuing Care-led package by way of Judicial Review.
- Lodging a challenge on behalf of a Professional Deputy whose client was a child. Health and Social Services were not providing any funding but our challenge secured a weekly care package of 126 hours, funded through Children’s Continuing Care. Following this, now that we have Education specialists in our Community Care Law team, we were then instructed by the child’s parents on an EHCP / SEN Tribunal appeal. We challenged the level of SEN provision and argued for a home education program to secure a further increase in funding from Education.
In an ongoing Children’s Continuing Care case, the Professional Deputy acted for a child with severe physical and mental disabilities. The child’s parents asked the Deputy to employ carers directly rather than through a care agency. The parents trusted the current carers and knew that they were leaving the agency. They wanted the Deputy to hire and pay these carers directly. We helped the Deputy obtain a ‘combination’ Personal Health Budget in order to achieve this. This meant that the CCG paid for care services provided through the Agency and the Professional Deputy received a Direct Payment PHB to pay these particular carers to ensure better continuity of care for the child.
Our Community Care Law team enjoy our work as we believe we make a positive difference for our clients and their families.
Looking forward to continuing to work with you all in the New Year and wishing you all the best for the festive season.
Chloe
To find out more about our services for Professional Deputies, contact our Community Care and Education Law team at Martin Searle Solicitors on 01273 609911, or email info@ms-solicitors.co.uk.
