Council Told to Pay Family for Disabled Woman's Care

A council has just been told to pay a family compensation of almost £100,000 for failing to arrange suitable care for a disabled young woman.

Trafford Council in Manchester has been found by the local government Ombudsman to have neglected the needs of Carly Wright as she grew out of services for disabled children and young people. In a strongly worded statement, the ombudsman said the authority should retrospectively pay her family £1,000 a week for having been left to look after her - and should continue paying until care is organised.

Ms Wright, 25, cannot speak, has epilepsy and limited mobility and needs support in most aspects of daily life. For four years until August 2005, she attended a special needs college where she was prepared for long-term adult residential care. Since then, however, she has lived at the family home in the Timperley area of Trafford.

The ombudsman, Anne Seex, found that the council made only two offers of residential placements, one of which had no downstairs toilet that Ms Wright could access. The other placement had been unable to answer questions about how it would meet her therapy needs.

Ms Wright's parents have a three bedroom house but have two other teenage children. Mrs Wright said"The thing that really got me was that we were told Carly was entitled to something...and then when it came down to it, nothing happened. We decided not to take it lying down."

Under Ms Seex's recommended compensatory package, which has to be agreed with Trafford, the family would receive about £94,000 for care costs over the past two years, plus £3,000 for distress, anxiety and time and trouble in making the complaint, plus £1,000 a week until a placement is agreed. The council apologised for its 'shortcomings' and said plans for a placement were well advanced.

The outcome of this complaint to the ombudsman shows that it can be well worth going through local authority complaint processes and taking these matters as far as possible. We are sure many readers will recognise these difficulties which crop up when people are going through 'transition', particularly when they are leaving residential college.

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