Direct Payments, as used in the UK, can make life more difficult for disabled and old people

One of the contributors to our growing virtual library sent us the following note with reference to a recent article in the Guardian:

"For the past year my mother (now 95, still living in her own house in Bristol) has been in a state of outrage because the organisation that supplies her with 2 hours of 'assistant time' on one day per week (a bit of cleaning, maybe some shopping at the nearby supermarket if there are items too heavy for mother to carry back in her wheely-walker) has pushed the charge up to 15 pounds per hour, even though the assistant herself only gets about 6 pounds per hour.

Mum is convinced that it's legalised Grand Larceny! But this article in the Guardian shows more clearly the actual costs to the organisation (which has charitable status). I have explained to her a few times that there are always hidden costs, but without being able to give precise detail. At a time when she really needs five or six hours per week of friendly local help, she has actually had to cut it down from three hours to two hours, both because of the cost, and for other reasons. For the seriously old, with increasing ill-health and impaired faculties, there are considerable problems in the whole scheme. But the government never considered that several hundred thousand people in their 90s might be living alone in their own homes -- they should have died long ago, according to official thinking..."