Charity chief says some legal battles for care are so 'harrowing' lawyers need counselling

A head of a legal charity which helps people fight for their right to social care, has revealed some of the cases are so "harrowing", the charity has to fundraise for counselling for its lawyers.

Access Social Care provides free legal advice to people in England to get the social care they are entitled to.

The legal team consists of 15 lawyers and 150 legal volunteers who range from barristers, experts in the field of law and solicitors who offer their time for free.

Speaking on the Let's Talk About Care podcast, Kari Gerstheimer, founder and chief executive of the charity said: "Our aim is to help people achieve a better quality of life, our charity saves lives, helps keep families together and makes life worth living."

A recent report published by the charity revealed there has been a 229 per cent increase in the number of social care needs assessment enquiries in the year 2021-22 compared to 2019-20, with an 88 per cent increase in enquiries that were identified as needing specialist legal advice in the year 2021-22, compared to 2019-20.

Ms Gerstheimer said: “What we have seen is really shocking.

“During the pandemic, calls from carers into helplines increased by about 400 per cent. But for me, one of the more worrying things is calls today in many areas are about 100 per cent higher.

"Our helpline resources have not increased but people are desperate for information and advice, they are desperate for social care and they know they are not having their needs met.”

Some cases are so 'harrowing' lawyers need counselling

Access Social Care officially launched on 1 April 2020 and works through a subscription-based membership model to connect its legal expertise to other organisations and beneficiaries.

"We launched right at the start of the first lockdown and we have helped about 1,000 people per year."

However, Ms Gerstheimer says the charity has “indirectly” helped “hundreds of thousands” more.

“We know every day, millions of older people and disabled people are living without the social care they need and the need for our service is vast.

“If someone is referred to us by one of our member organisations, we have a conversation. Sometimes it is just one piece of advice that people need but sometimes we need to take that case on.”

Some of the charity's successes include securing waking night support for a man dying of cancer after it was refused by the local authority and preventing a local authority from cutting four people’s care packages by 50 per cent.

It also secured discharges for several people with a learning disability experiencing inhumane treatment in in-patient units.

However she revealed "sometimes the support comes too late like the 15 year old we helped who needed a few hours of help a week but instead ended up in an inpatient mental health unit, overmedicated, restrained and hundreds of miles away from his mum and dad".

Sadly, some of the cases are so "harrowing", according to Ms Gerstheimer, that the charity fundraises for counselling support for the lawyers working on them to help deal with the trauma.

’Lawyers cannot afford to take these cases on’

The charity was founded to help people who have been turned down for care, but they are unable to fight for their right to care as they cannot afford to pay for a lawyer.

The only option for many people is legal aid but Ms Gerstheimer says since 2010, there has been “a 77 per cent reduction of cases being taken on by legal aid lawyers”.

According to the Law Society, 68 per cent of the population of England and Wales do not have access to a community care legal aid provider and only 16 per cent have access to more than one legal aid provider in their area.

“Lawyers cannot afford to take these cases on. Even if you are really capable and you know what your rights are, it's extraordinarily difficult to find a lawyer to help you.

“That affects people in many different ways and without that accountability, it means the balance of powers aren’t working and public bodies can make unlawful decisions without being accountable.”

'You are looking for information which is really complex to navigate'

Another reason why the charity is receiving more calls from people is the shortfall of money to the local authorities from the government as well as a shortage of care workers.

According to the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), its latest report shows that almost 300,000 people are now waiting for an assessment of their needs by social workers, an increase of 90,000 (44 per cent) in five months and one in four has been waiting longer than six months.

At this rate of increase, the number waiting will hit 400,000 by November, double the total 12 months previously. Along with an estimated £7bn shortfall this year in social care funding, Ms Gerstheimer says the local authorities are struggling to cope with demand.

“It’s not really surprising we are seeing people struggling to access information about what their rights are.

“Often people are entering the social care system when families are in crisis and you are looking for information which is really complex to navigate at a time when you are very distressed which then impedes your ability to access information.

“Disability can feel quite a long way away but by the time we are at retirement age, 50 per cent of us will be disabled.

"Most of us will need social care either for ourselves or for a loved one in our lifetime.”

’Those of us working in social care have never seen it this bad’

The government recently increased National Insurance contributions to tackle NHS backlogs and fund social care. However, Ms Gerstheimer said this increase "won't touch the sides.

“The reality is we have got ourselves into such a bad situation that we are going to need to do something really radical if we are going to continue to meet the legal obligations that are contained in the care act.

“Social care needs more money and the current funding is woefully inadequate. That translates to an absolute tsunami of unmet needs.

“It’s simply not the case that ignoring it will make it go away. I would urge the next prime minister to look at social care as a matter of urgency because, without sufficient use of taxpayer's money, you are creating an absolute nightmare for the future”.

'Political parties need to work together on a solution'

The chief executive says a lack of social care workforce is compounding the problem.

According to a report published by Skills for Care, the number of filled posts in adult social care has decreased by around three per cent (50,000) between 2020/21 and 2021/22 for the first time ever (with records dating back to 2012/13).

“Social care providers are handing back contracts because they can’t staff their services and we have heard from our members that in some areas when they have tried to give back their contracts the local authority won’t take the contract back because they know they can’t staff it either.

"This is the time to take the political sting out of social care. Our political parties need to work together on a solution. It’s too urgent to ignore and as a society, we are being let down.”

To find out more about Access Social Care go to www.accesscharity.org.uk/

To listen to the podcast click here