THE HIGH Court hammered what might be the final nail into the coffin of community care on June 16 when it ruled that Gloucestershire county council was quite entitled to withdraw care from five disabled pensioners.
The great pretence of the Tory reforms was that every patient to be discharged from nospital care would be entitled to an assessment of their care needs, with these services in theory to be provided by local council social services, subject to means- tested charges.
Fraud
But campaigners like London Health Emergency have always argues that this. was a hollow fraud, pointing out that both health authorities and councils face rigid cash limits and counterposed financial interests which would make them reluctant to admit the extent of a patient's needs.
In practice the needs of the patient come a poor second to the balance sheets of the health authority or social services And now the Courts have ruled that this is perfectly correct.
The council stepped out of line only by withdrawing services without reassessing the needs of the five pensioners, one of whom is a double amputee, and one crippled by arthritis.
Had they gone through this charade, council chiefs would have been quite within their rights to withdraw whatever services they decided they could not afford.
Cash limits
The High Court judgement makes it quite clear that the decisive element in the provision of continuing care services for the frail elderly is not the needs of the individual but the limited cash available to the council concerned.
According to Lord Justice McCowan "Only in cases where people would be left at severe physical risk" would it be unreasonable for a council to decide on cash grounds to withdraw supporting services from them.
Earlier this year the govemment issued new guidelines giving health authorities the rignt to throw frail elderly patients out of hospital beds against their wishes, and to consign them to nursing homes or to their own homes where any care they receive would be subject to means-tested charges.
The real scandal is that this huge exercise in privatisation and imposition of charges on what were services provided free at point of use by the NHS has been carried through with all-party support.
Not only are Labour councils implementing the charges, robbing pensioners of their savings and forcing them to sell their homes to pay for nursing home care, but a new Labour government is pledged to maintain the same wretched system.
Trap
Latest estimates suggest that more councils, like Gloucestershire, will again run out of community care funds early in the current financial year: the nationwide shortfall in funding could be in excess of f200m, rising each year as more frail elderly patients fall into the community care trap.