A focus on addressing unmet social care, health and mental health needs
Everybody has the right to health and social care to meet their needs, as well as rights about the type of support they receive. Public authorities have duties and powers to help people including those who have needs arising from illness, disability or learning difficulty, being carers, children in need, children in care, care leavers and for vulnerable families who have no recourse to public funds.
Social care needs focus on providing assistance to people with needs to ensure they are able to engage in the activities of daily living, can maintain independence and social interaction, and that they are protected in vulnerable situations and in circumstances such as accessing a care home and other supported accommodation. Social care is provided by local authorities, who can charge for it.
Healthcare needs relate to treatment or prevention of disease, illness, injury or disability and care or aftercare. Healthcare is generally provided free under the NHS.
Many individuals with disabilities and carers experience multiple disadvantage in society. At Central England Law Centre we use our expertise to help those who require health or social care services to use their legal rights and ensure they are properly supported.
As of 2022 it was estimated there were 14.6 million disabled people in the UK and around 6.5 million carers
For those with care needs and their carers the process of accessing adequate support can be difficult and confusing and many people do not received the help they need and are entitled to. Similarly, NHS service capacity and provision has not kept pace with growing demand for services, particularly to meet mental health needs.
MIND approximate one in four people in the UK experience a mental health problem each year.
Many individuals needing therapy or treatment are not able to access the support they require within a sufficient timeframe to help them when they need it most. It is concerning that so few disabled people or their carers seek to pursue and enforce their legal rights to lawful assessment or provision. The Law Centre believe there are complex and multifaceted barriers to persons with disabilities and carers securing justice by accessing lawful provision to meet unmet needs.
A key barrier is poor legal literacy in the general population, and amongst care professionals and voluntary sector organisations, about substantive and process rights in health and social care. We provide targeted public legal education aimed firstly at increasing legal capability within our communities to tackle unmet health and social care needs, and secondly at opening pathways to specialist legal advice where legal representation is needed to pursue and enforce rights.
Another important barrier is the systemic power imbalance between disabled people and carers in relation to public authorities during health and social care processes or in commissioning/budgetary decision-making.
We believe that bringing people with shared experiences together to help them participate as a collective in consultations or co-production activities, underpinned by an understanding of legal rights, can help reduce this imbalance and gives disabled people and carers more confidence in using their voices to explain how they think health and social care systems could better designed to support them. We piloted this approach in 2018 with our RIPPLE project (see below).
Mo's health is extremely poor meaning he is unable to look after himself and so was being forced to rely on care from his brother. With the law centre's support Mo now receives daily care to meet his needs Read more
RIPPLE is a unique model of public legal education (funded by the Legal Education Foundation) to health and social care service-users and/or their carers and the organisations that advocate and support them. Read more