Crisis Of City OAPs Left In Care Queue

Hundreds of vulnerable older people in Edinburgh are not being given the free personal care they are entitled to because they are still waiting to be assessed. City council chiefs have been urged to “get their act together” after official figures revealed that more than 1600 people were still waiting to receive payments of up to £145 a week to receive help washing, dressing and eating.

Statistics from the Scottish Executive showed the Capital had far more people waiting than anywhere else in Scotland.

Council chiefs claimed the figures were only a “snapshot” and included people already under assessment. But SNP Lothians MSP Fiona Hyslop said the statistics for the Capital were alarming compared with the rest of the country.

“It’s pretty shocking that Edinburgh has the largest number in Scotland – that has to be a serious concern,” she said. “Edinburgh council tax payers deserve an explanation of what is going wrong here. Whether it’s a staffing issue or a budget issue, the city council has got to get its act together. We have a moral responsibility to ensure that the elderly in our communities are taken care of with a fair degree of respect to maintain their dignity.

“Edinburgh council should now be telling us just what has gone wrong and what they intend to do to put it right.”

According to new statistics, 1594 elderly people in Edinburgh were waiting at home for an assessment and a further 42 were waiting in hospital.

The council with the next biggest figure was Highland, where 382 people were awaiting assessment. Several councils, including Glasgow, claimed to have no-one waiting at all.

Tom Ponton, the Lib Dems’ health and social care spokesman on the council, said there had been a longstanding problem in Edinburgh with the number of people waiting to be assessed for care.

“It is a cause for concern that these lists don’t seem to be coming down,” he said. “The social work department has never had enough staff doing this.”

Last week the Scottish Parliament’s health committee published a report on free personal care which showed elderly people in Edinburgh waited an average of more than five weeks for an assessment and a further 27 days for their care package to be delivered.

The committee recommended a mandatory deadline for assessment or new rules backdating payments to the point of eligibility, rather than the date when individuals were assessed.

Age Concern welcomed the proposed change. A spokesman said: “We would support legislation which restricted the time people would need to wait. Currently the law refers only to ‘a reasonable time’, which is meaningless.”

Peter Gabbitas, director of health and social care at the city council, said the figures published by the Executive included people in the process of being assessed, whose assessment was not completed on the day of the survey.

He said everyone referred to the department for a service had a screening assessment within one day of referral. “If the need is assessed as urgent then a full assessment or service will commence immediately.”

Kingsley Thomas, the council’s leader for health and social care, said the council and the health service were now working more closely together to avoid the need for people to be seen by too many different professionals.

And he claimed: “The city council has got its act together. We are showing we have the largest reduction in the number of people delayed in hospital because they are waiting for services elsewhere or a care home place.”