- Target:
- Derbyshire County Council
- Region:
- United Kingdom
Thank you to all who signed for supporting this petition, which has now closed
Derbyshire County Council (DCC) has announced plans to drastically change social care provision for vulnerable residents, particularly elderly and disabled people.
The planned changes include closing two thirds of all care homes in the county, making all service users pay up to £200 a week for care which has always been free at the point of delivery, changing the criteria for qualifying for care so that only those subjectively judged to have substantial or critical needs may access services, making those with stairlifts pay a further £122 a year for a 'warranty' and to remove the automatic top-up grants necessary to enable anyone who needs major home alterations to access district council funds.
DCC announced these changes before Central Government's Comprehensive Spending Review and despite the Council's wealth, as it has in excess of £85 Million in resources. Taking these two facts together, it seems clear that DCC's attack on these vital services is motivated more by elitist ideology and a desire for privitisation by the back door than it could be by necessity. DCC claims that "no decisions have been made yet", but their 'consultation' appears not to have been very widely advertised and ends at 5 p.m. on 5th November 2010, comments can be made via the online form at http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/carechanges
We, the undersigned, call upon Derbyshire County Council to abandon it's unjust and unfair plans to charge vulnerable elderly and disabled residents for social care. We demand that the County Council uses the £85 Million reserve and awaits the outcome of the £2 Billion announced for social care from Central Government before seeking to make any changes to social care in Derbyshire.
We also demand that the Council considers other economies rather than attacking the most vulnerable groups of residents. In any case, we demand that proper impact assessments are made and published for any proposed changes.
We further call for DCC to keep all public services in the public sector where they belong, and not to use the Comprehensive Spending Review as an excuse for unnecessary and damaging 'privitisations'.
The Stop Derbyshire County Council's Attacks On Social Care petition to Derbyshire County Council was written by John Moore and is in the category Local Government at GoPetition.