Book review:The Elderly Client Handbook (2nd Edition) By Gordon R. Ashton

Feature

posted 10 Jul 2000 in Volume 5 Issue 5

Book review:The Elderly Client Handbook (2nd Edition)
By Gordon R. Ashton

This is the welcome second edition of a book which has been widely useful in its first edition. Its author, judge Gordon Ashton, is well-known to solicitors who practise in this field. He was there himself for 28 years and specialised in helping and advising elderly and mentally handicapped clients. Although appointed to the district bench in 1992, Judge Ashton took his special interests with him and remains a prolific writer and speaker. He is a part-time chairman of the Social Security Appeal tribunal and thus can also be counted an authority on benefits and associated topics, as well as blending knowledge into the larger recipe for advising older clients of their legal rights. In this edition, he has been assisted by Anne Edis, another solicitor who specialises successfully in this area of work, who is Chairman of “Solicitors for the Elderly”. She has been particularly responsible for covering recent developments in legal practice.

During the six years that have passed since the first edition, a great deal has changed and the new edition is twice the size of its predecessor. The clear layout of the topics has been retained but much of the information has been helpfully expanded. For example, some useful statistics have bee added at the beginning of the book. The layout is as before, with bullet points for emphasis and boxes of text with pithy highlights or information as to where additional information can be found. Although the book appears to be aimed in general at people with little or no expertise in this field, there is also plenty of help for the more experienced practitioner at sea with a specific problem.

There are some parts of the text new to the second edition, including sections on national insurance contributions, aftercare on discharge from hospital and discharge under supervision (introduced by the Mental Health (Patients in the Community) Act 1996), the holding of long residential leases by the elderly, and the Trustee delegation Act 1999 and its relationship with the Enduring Powers of Attorney Act 1985, sec. 3(3). It also contains an improved precedent for a living will. Case and statute law are successfully brought up to date. Generally, however, the increased length is due to the expansion of the information previously given.

In the section on financial management, references to the Public Trust Office will soon be out of date because of the present proposals for restructuring that office. Looking further ahead, on the horizon are an overhaul of the Mental Health Act 1983 and the long-awaited implementation of the Law Commission’s proposals (mentioned in Section C of the Appendix) for decision-making for mentally incapacitated adults. No doubt Gordon Ashton would have hoped that by this second edition he could have been leading us thought the maze of the legislation. At least he has given us some signposts to start us off.

Reviewed by Biddy McFarlane