The council meeting on 9 March 2015 agreed to support a request to Government to consider extending free personal care to people under 65, with dementia. Fair enough. If you are unable to support yourself through illness or disability, your age should not matter. I hope the Government will find a way to introduce Frank's Law, not just for people with dementia, but for everyone who requires assistance.
This brings us to the confusing part. The social work department and the NHS both provide care in various forms, and I sometimes struggle to know the difference between the services provided by each. In her moving speech to Councillors, Frank's Law campaigner Amanda Kopel said her family had initially received less support than required, possibly because "one hand didn't know what the other was doing".
My question to the Social work Department was ... will the integration of health and social care improve things? The answer from a senior officer was, basically, yes. That's good news; Alex Neil when Cabinet Secretary banged heads together and passed a legislation saying councils and the NHS simply had to work together.
Sometimes it takes a law to make public bodies change their practice. I wish Amanda Kopel well in her campaign, and I hope Ministers will find a way of making it happen. The current UK government's austerity agenda will not make this easy, but there's an election soon.
