We are delighted to share that our friends Eve Holt from Maxwell Gillott Solicitors and PSG Speak Up from Manchester University are holding an open discussion about the LB Bill.
The discussion will take place on Monday 1st December. It starts at 10am and finishes at 1pm.
The discussion is being held at Manchester University, in room AG3/4 in the Ellen Wilkinson Building.
To book a place email PSG Speak Up by clicking here.
Barbara and Eve will take notes of the discussions and feedback and share them with us.
LB Bill 
I am the mother of a 31 year old daughter who has cerebral palsy, autism, a learning disability and partial sight. She lives in residential care, but it is a small home for 6 people and is just 5 minutes drive from my home so I see her very regularly and she comes home to me for a day a week. I applied successfully to be appointed by the Court of Protection as her deputy when a social worker refused to allow her to be discharged from hospital after an eye operation, even though everybody involved in her care, from the consultant and clinical staff to the care providers and carers from her current home expressed a strong opinion that her distress at being in hospital was causing her to self-harm in such a way that there was a real and immediate risk of her completely and permanently blinding herself. I felt that I could not risk being overruled by officious social workers who sadly, for whatever reasons known only to themselves, did not have her best interests as a priority in their decision making, so now as her Deputy my opinions have to be given strong weight in all decisions about her welfare. I also work for a Christian disability charity, http://www.throughtheroof.org. I am unable to attend the consultation in Manchester today, but I have read the draft bill and have the following observations. I thoroughly endorse the aims of this bill and would like to see it become law as soon as possible. Perhaps Clause 5.2c of the draft bill could include something to the effect that, where applicable, the disabled person’s Court of Protection appointed Deputy should be consulted, especially where that person is a family member or long-standing family friend. This may be implied, but is not explicit in the current proposed wording. Clause 5.3e isn’t quite grammatical, and as a result its meaning is a little ambiguous – I think it needs the words “are appropriate” inserted after the words “disabled person” in order to clarify the meaning. I totally agree with Clause 8, removing people with autism related conditions and learning disabilities from the scope of the Mental Health Act. But perhaps something could be added to clause 7 to ensure that the strong rights of families under the Mental Health Act should also be given to families under the Mental Capacity Act. If you wish to contact me about any of this, please email me at ros@throughtheroof.org. Thank you.
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[…] first of these was a discussion for Disabled People’s Organisations in London:Followed by a conversation in Manchester organised by Eve Holt and PSG Speak-Up: Today we thought we’d highlight four more […]
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