denotes premium content | Nov 22 2008 Elderly Client Adviser archive
Volume 12 Issue 5
I have been asked a couple of times recently (whilst avoiding being swept along by the tidal waves flowing along Sheffield’s main roads) whether or not the elder care sector will benefit from a Gordon Brown premiership. I honestly don’t know, but I have a generalised fear (only beaten by an increased concern over high-velocity sewerage). Brown is clearly a reader and a thinker. That sort of person is rare as a British PM. When it does happen is it a good sign?
The difference between a theoretical scientist and an experimental scientist is that the former are no good at practical things. They need other people to engage in that for them.
One famous German theorist was so clever that his mere presence, not to mention wild hair style, used to decimate experiments. So, his colleagues would only discuss things with him at the door of his laboratory. That’s rather like having Gordon Brown living next door, but not living in your home, if you get my drift.
He is now starting to put his long-time theorising into practice without the limitations of the past. The putting of intellectualised political or economic theories into practice by British PMs has an even more worrying record. It is also something usually effected at great speed.
It means that Gordon Brown’s ‘Not the Queen’s speech’ on 11th July was full of promises for more legislation. Far too much by the look of it – another Health and Social Care Bill for one. We must wait and see what that is all about in detail. We only have to think about the mess we are facing due to the rushed aspects of the implementation of the Mental Capacity Act.
We have a situation where new procedures are before Parliament and appear to be timed to make their finally agreed appearance only on or around 1st October, when the relevant provisions come into force. But that is just a lawyerly point, I suppose.
Solicitors For The Elderly (SFE) has reported that the new Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPA) form regulations have been
agreed but omit any address for the attorney. This is apparently deliberate ‘because people move house’.
Hmm... Having once had to trace ‘Mary Kelly of Dublin’, there was at least a small clue in the wording of the legacy.
As SFE rightly points out in its July newsletter: “It is extremely likely that the financial LPA will not be accepted by most financial institutions as a residential address provides a basis for credit/identity checks on an individual.” Given that Abbey National for one is widely reported to be in meltdown over just this sort of issue at present, with addresses and a much simpler current system, concerns must be justified.
This type of silly situation is avoidable. More legislation, more theories being put into practice in an ill-thought-out way are deeply unhelpful, especially when they affect the vulnerable and those people who are only trying to help them.
The new Brown agenda also includes building 250,000 houses a year. I recall the words of an elderly local man who I met at a bus stop by the River Don in about 1990. “I don’t know why they are building them houses there. It’s a flood plain. It were under six foot of water in 1947.” The words of the wise. It was under 11 feet of water in June 2007.
The lessons of the past – the advice of the older person – may be simple, unglamorous and highly non-theoretical, but it can save a lot of difficulty. Just like building on the flood plain it is obvious that a whole heap of new legislation that fails to tackle the messy mass of existing legislation will do little good. Call me a gloom monster. At least it’s stopped raining. I just love global wetting.
David Coldrick
Consulting editor
david.coldrick@wrigleys.co.uk
Features
Brown and pensions: putting the record straight
HARVEY COLE finds sympathy for the Prime Minister and suggests that there may be another angle to the ‘pension raid’ story.
Old lamps renewed
The Solicitors’ Code of Conduct 2007 contains provisions which are particularly relevant to practitioners dealing with elderly and vulnerable clients. ROBERT CRAIG asks what are the new provisions, and are they clear and workable?
Capacity and mental disorder
In the third and final part of his series on dementia, DR SINGH provides a medical perspective on the tests for assessment of capacity.
The Mental Capacity Act 2005: Know the Code
The Code of Practice in support of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 has now been published. ANN CORY offers guidance on its provisions.
Welcome to my world
JUDY WURR offers insights into the role of a Lord Chancellor’s visitor and her experiences in dealing with lay and professional receivers.
Regulars
The Mental Capacity Act 2005 Code of Practice
I wonder if readers of the Elderly Client Adviser will have seen the summer 2007 edition of entitlement, the newsletter of Title Research?
