LETTER: Issues facing disabled people in Brent that require advocacy, information and support

 Dear Editor,

Brent Advocacy Concerns closed down in September 2021 but before we went, we attended the most recent Disability Forum last July, followed by a special meeting in August where we informed the board's consultation about what we felt should be included in their strategy concerning Brent's estimated 50,000 disabled people and elders.

We are pleased that as part of our legacy, the Board have agreed to include 'non -statutory advocacy' within their future commissioning plans (page 30 of the strategy) and hopefully the board will be able to provide services to all those disabled people looking for advocacy, information and support.  Today the main issue facing disabled people in Brent is the 'Cost of Living Crisis', especially the increasing cost of energy, while the following year several thousands of Brent's residents will be looking for advice regarding  the new Social Care plans.

Before Brent Advocacy closed, we had many disabled people requesting our help to enable them or access 'continuing healthcare' and had we remained open, we would have been able to support many more disabled and elders in accessing some of the new social Care  provisions but now there is no one left in Brent able to take this on.

Finally, Brent Advocacy Concerns offered a unique service to Brent's disabled and elders for 33 years, as it was free to everyone who came to us and sometimes a client woul come to us with one issue before we discovered that they had other issues that needed solving. But we always tried to help everyone who came to our office in Willesden and I can honestly say, we never turned anyone away.

Thanks 

 

John Healy.

LETTER: Who will provide advocacy for Brent's 50,000 disabled & elders?

 Dear Editor,

The government published their Social Care White Paper yesterday (1st December 2021) and identified the main problem facing elders & disabled people is in accessing advocacy,  information &  advice about what services are available at a local level.  To meet this need funding of £5,000,000 will be provided covering the first 3 years, to provide advocacy, advice & information which will be delivered by locally based organisations.

Two years ago exactly (end of November 2019) Brent Advocacy Concerns had to give up their office and at the time we were providing advocacy, information & advice to disabled people and elders in every Ward in Brent all for free. 

We leased our office at The Willesden Centre for Health & Care from NHS Property Services but we could not afford the rent.  We asked both Brent Council & Brent CCG to help us out financially but we were were not offered any help and the CCG even said there was no demand for advocacy and instead of funding us, they felt the money saved could be used in providing services that were in demand.

In over 30 years at our Willesden office we built up a team of advocates who were all disabled people and therefore were able to identify with other disabled people & elders looking for help.  e.g. I had both a BA degree and diploma in Health & Welfare, along with 28 years of providing advocacy support and most of my experience centred around Housing & Social Care, together with various Health issues.

After leaving our office we continued to provide services with disabled people contacting us by email, or over the phone but we realised we could not deliver the same level of service without an office, where we could see potential clients face to face.  So we decided to close down and we were removed from the Register of Charties last September (2021) after completing over 33 years of providing free services to Brent's disabled communities, along with Brent Elders.

It will be interesting to see who takes over from Brent Advocacy Concerns and whoever it is, will they continue to provide services for free including advocacy, information and advice to Brent's estimated 50,000 disabled & elders who are all potential clients?

From John Healy

Former trustee and volunteer advocate of Brent Advocacy Concerns (Charity Number 1001369).

New Brent 'Gateway to Support Services' launches tomorrow without a website

I understand the 'Gateway to Support Services' provided by Age UK (Brent, Harrow and Hillingdon) at a cost of £1.5m will launch tomorrow without the promised website.  This leaves residents wanting to use the new advocacy and carers service unable to find out about referrals or contact them.

Readers will recall that the contract was awarded without Scrutiny due to 'officer oversight' LINK and has affected the financial viability of several Brent voluntary organisations.

The new organisation is due to offer:

• Care Act Advocacy
• Mental Health Act Advocacy
• Mental Capacity Act Advocacy
• Carers Services
• Social Isolation Prevention Services

Ironically Brent Advocacy Concerns, operated by unpaid volunteers from their  Willesden Community Hospital closed on Friday after 31 years as a result of the high rent demanded by NHS Property Services. A tiny fraction of that £1,5m would have enabled them to survive.

Brent's independent voice for the disabled silenced

No longer able to afford the market rent demanded by the NHS  for its premises in Willesden Hospital Brent Advocacy Concerns has closed its doors today and will vacate tomorrow.

Last week I received this message from John Healy, one of the volunteers (there are no paid workers):

I know you are very busy with the election and climate change, not forgetting Brent's pavement's as well but I am just letting you know that we will be leaving our office this Friday, the 29th November 2019 (on the same site for over 31 years) where we have been continuously providing advocacy to the disabled community in Brent during all that time.

We are not closing down (yet) as we will still be available online but without seeing people in person, I think it will only be a matter of time before we close the charity down completely.

Through Wembley Matters, could you ask both the council and Brent CCG who will take over from us by  seeing disabled people face to face in an office, when we are no longer there.

With a nice bit of irony--A Clinical Psychologist from Northwick Park Hospital has asked us (21/11/19) to provide him with an advocate for one of his stroke patients, who can no longer access his kitchen & bathroom.  I have sent him two emails offering to advocate for him but as yet, he has not replied.

John got in touch again this evening to say:

Hi Martin, I had three disabled people contact me on my last day.

Including:-

A lady with Autism who had been turned down by PowHer, Voiceability and Brent CAB who all said she did not meet their eligibility criteria.  Even the council turned her away, saying she was not entitled to a needs assessment.  Under The Care Act, 2014, the council have a statutory duty to carry out an assessment for anyone who asks for one.

So with us gone after today, who will help disabled people in Brent?

 

Best wishes

I hope the the Council and Brent CCG will respond but I don't think it right not to finish without thanking John and his colleagues, past and present, for what they have done for Brent people with a disability over the past three decades.

Thank you.

New service provider contract for Brent's most vulnerable not subject to Scrutiny

Readers of this blog will be familiar with the travails of Brent Advocacy Concerns which is going to have to close at the end of November due to the charity being unable to meet the new high rent demanded for its small premises in Willesden. The charity has no paid workers but is still helping people with disabilities. Just this week it is providing advocacy for a parent of two autistic children as well as a range of other age groups.

Now it looks as if other local charities may also be facing closure, this time due to an unscrutinised decision by Brent Council.

The Council is requesting exemption from Scrutiny of a decision to award the 'Gateway to Support Services' contract to Age UK, Brent, Harrow and Hillingdon. This would five different services, not all of which are known to be an area of expertise for the organisation:

• Care Act Advocacy
• Mental Health Act Advocacy
• Mental Capacity Act Advocacy
• Carers Services
• Social Isolation Prevention Services

These are services for some of the most vulnerable Brent residents and it is surely detrimental to their interests that the decision and contract have not been subject to rigorous scrutiny. 

The reason for the failure to add the procurement to the Council's Forward Plan is attributed to 'officer oversight.'

The decision will mean that a number of Brent organisations that were not successful in the procurement process will lose what was previously funding from the Council and if, like Brent Advocacy Concerns, are unable to find alternative funding, will have to close.

Any Scrutiny would need to look at what that would mean for residents currently receiving services from those organisation and consider whether a large contract, embracing five areas, would have the risk of losing some specialist skills and expertise of value to the community.

Large, multiple area contracts, aimed at saving the Council money, are not always as responsive as small organisations. The Veolia contract covering street cleaning, waste collection, recycling, parks maintenance and more has not been an unmitigated success!

Extract from the Exemption Notice to Cllr Ketan Sheth, chair of the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee

To award the Gateway to Support Services contract to Age UK Brent, Harrow and Hillingdon. Gateway includes five different services; Care Act Advocacy, Mental Health Act Advocacy, Mental Capacity Act Advocacy, Carers Services and Social Isolation Prevention Services.  Why it was not possible to provide the required notice (i.e. why the decision or exemption was not anticipated)  The Gateway procurement originally took place in March / April 2019. At that time it was decided not to proceed and award a contract. When the procurement was started again in July 2019, it was not added to the council’s Forward Plan. This was due to officer oversight. Once this was realised the decision was added to the Forward Plan. This was done on 16th September. The earliest the decision could be implemented if we followed the Forward Plan timetable would be 24th October. The Gateway contract is due to go-live on 2nd December.  The Gateway procurement was completed in mid-August, but award of the contract delayed because the due diligence process took longer than planned. The procurement of the service has been reviewed by Internal Audit following a complaint received by the council. This has resulted in a shorter than planned implementation and hand over period. An exemption is sought so that the implementation period is not reduced further.  § Why it is impractical to defer the decision to a later date to allow the appropriate notice to be provided.  This contract provides a number of advocacy services to vulnerable people in Brent as well as support for carers. These services are currently delivered via multiple contracts which will end on 1st December 2019. The nature of the services and the complexity of ensuring a smooth handover between a number of organisations means that it is important to maximise the period of time available for implementation prior to the current contracts expiring.  TUPE will apply to staff involved in delivering services currently. In order to make sure staff transfers are managed properly, the more time available to the organisations involved to arrange this the better. There are also implications for the organisations who have not been successful in this procurement. For some, the council has been their main funder for many years. These organisations will need time to either secure additional funding from other sources, review their operations to manage without council funding, or close their business. Again, having the time to properly manage this would be to their benefit.

High rent forces Brent disabled advocacy service to close its doors as Kilburn Times story spotlights why it is needed now more than ever

Who will advocate and offer support to the disabled people 

across Brent when we close down later this year?

On the same day that the Kilburn Times revealed that a Neasden man with epilepsy has been left with £16 a month to live on under the Universal Credit scheme LINK, a Brent charity, Brent Advocacy Concerns, that has  operated in Brent for 30 years, has been forced to adopt an exit strategy for its operation. The charity is unable to afford the increased rent demanded by its landlord.

John Healy of Brent Advocacy Concerns told Wembley Matters:

Last Monday afternoon, July 29^th,  I had to turn down 6 disabled people, requesting advocacy from us.  This is no longer unusual, as we seem to be getting requests covering various issues but we do not have the resources to meet the ever increasing demand any longer.

So Martin you may wish to ask your readers including the council, as to who will advocate and offer support to the disabled people across Brent when we close down later this year?
Even today there is a sad story about a disabled man in Neasden (on Twitter & KT) forced to live on £16 a month.  Once upon a time we might have contacted him, to see if we could help him but not anymore...

Advocacy Concerns plight has been covered before on Wembley Matters and various promises and assurances have come to nothing.

John continued:

You may remember when WM reported back in November 2016 on the Health & Wellbeing Scrutiny meeting where the chair reported that they and the CCG would do everything they could to support us, by finding us reasonable accommodation when we were to move from our office at the time to a new office within the centre.

This week our NHS Property Services landlord informed us that from Dec.2019 we will have to pay over £5K a quarter to remain in our small office in the Willesden Centre for Health & Care.   We have managed to stay afloat for the last 7 years by only using volunteers with no paid staff and living off our reserves. But we are now facing an annual rent of over £20K from next year, as well as covering our overheads, including phone, broadband,insurance etc.

And in all of those past 7 years we have not had any new funding from any source but now we have to accept, our time is up.

Even at this late stage I call upon Brent councillors to meet with council officers and Brent NHS Clinical Commissioning Group to see if a solution can be found so that disabled people in Brent get the advocacy service they sorely need in today’s callous environment.

Will voluntary groups at the Willesden Centre get a lifeline tonight?

Tonight's Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee has an item on the use of space by voluntary organisations at the Willesden Centre for Health and Care. I hope councillors will take the opportunity to try and get a positive outcome for organisations that contribute a great deal to provision but cannot afford market rents, such as Brent Advocacy Concerns LINK.

This letter  to Cllr Sheth, from Sheik Auladin, Interim Chief Operating Officer of the Brent Clinical Commissioning Group could enable the Committee to focus on some possible solutions and give voluntary organisations some reassurance regarding costs and space ahead of the end of March deadline.

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Thank you for your letter dated 6 th November 2017 regarding the progress the CCG has made in respect of supporting voluntary sector organisations, working within the NHS estate in Brent and specifically at the Willesden Centre for Health and Care. 

The CCG has continued to work to identify tenants for the void space across the Brent sites in line with its commissioning intentions . As you will appreciate our priority has to be ensuring the statutory services we commission can access fit for purpose and appropriate accommodation; however, where voluntary services are already in occupation at such sites, or where voluntary organisat ions express an interest for space, we will proactively work to establish requirements and where possible accommodate. 

There has been a long standing need to provide the Burnley Practice - at the Willesden Centre for Health and Care - with an appropriately sized and located space within the building. The practice has been successful in securing NHS England funding to support its relocation within the building to space previously occupied by the Brent Association for Disabled People. The CCG is aware that some voluntary services previously operating under the auspices of BADP continue in occupation of part of this space, albeit they are not being charged. 

The CCG has met with each of these organisations over the past few weeks to explain the plans, establish their ongoing space requirements and reassure the services it will seek to secure an alternative arrangement for them within the building. As you acknowledge, charging market rent is the policy of NHS PS over which we have no jurisdiction; but we will draw on this relationship and try and ensure the organisations can meet rental costs through the same or favourable terms. 

Brent CCG is committed to supporting the valuable work of the voluntary sector in Brent. It is not possible to develop a formal policy for the use of NHS estate by the voluntary sector, due to the CCG having no direct property interest; however we do commit to the principles set out by Sarah Mansuralli previously, and will continue to support the occupation of void space by voluntary organisations where this space is not required for the delivery of statutory or directly commissioned services. 

Yours sincerely,
Sheik Auladin
Interim Chief Operating Officer
Brent Clinical Commissioning Group

Brent Advocacy Concerns step in to fill the PIP advice gap

Brent Advocacy Concerns are still waiting for details of their future accommodation with GPs due to move into their space at Willesden Centre in April.

Meanwhile John Healy told me that they are very much in demand:

On resuming my voluntary work after the holiday, I felt overwhelmed by over 30 emails that needed replying too. My fellow trustees  have concentrated their efforts on sorting out our office move.

I have never experienced such demand with most of the requests being from disabled people needing help with claims for PIP (personal independence payments) or help with appealing their failed PIP claims.   

Brent council have awarded several contracts for providers to undertake this work but it seems to me that disabled people in Brent are either not aware of them or they cannot access them.

Can any WM readers offer Brent Advocacy Concerns any advice? Councillors, Brent CCG, Brent CVS, Brent Healthwatch not responding.

From Brent Advocacy Concerns

Dear Martin,

I was informed today that our office (in Willesden Centre for Health and Care) has been designated as 'a clinical waste dispersal site'.  The building work to convert it is due to begin on the 2nd Jan. 2018.

I have contacted Brent CCG, councillors, Brent Healthwatch & Brent CVS, so far no one has replied.  We have not been informed about any of this but it looks like we will be evicted before Christmas.

Could you ask your readers if that is the way to treat a disability charity that has been providing services for free, for the last 30 years in Brent. 

Just today I had to turn down a business from NW10 who had asked us to represent one of their clients in an ESA benefit appeal next week.  They wanted to know who would be able to help them but there is no one.  I did suggest Brent CAB but they normally require a lot of notice, whereas we could have helped them now.

...................................................................................................................................................................

The background to this distressing issue can be found HERE

Brent disabled advocacy voluntary organisation faces closure as a result of NHS Estates income maximisation

 Nearly a year after I published concerns that Brent Advocacy Concerns would lose its space at the PFI Willesden Health and Care Centre LINK as a result of the NHS Estates policy of gaining market rates for its property LINK the situation has not been resolved, and if anything has worsened. As a small voluntary organisation BAC is unable to afford the market rate plus rent demanded,

Despite 'good intentions' voiced by NHSPS, Brent CCG and Brent CVS to help Brent Advocacy Concerns I understand that Burnley Medical Practice will be relocating to the space that houses  Brent BAC with premises that will be designed for 12,000 patients.  Work is due to start in January 2018.

Brent Advocacy Concerns, a voluntary organisation will have to close or move, but state that 'nobody, including Brent Clinical Commissioning Group, will tell us anything.'

BAC's webpage LINK sets out the benefits of advocacy:

Advocacy is about making sure that you as a disabled person can make your voice heard, especially when dealing with local services and the health and benefits systems.

Advocates are likely to have first-hand knowledge and experience of what you’re going through, and are well-equipped to help you get your point across. They might work with you one-to-one, or link you with a group of similar people; they might be needed for a short time of crisis, or for providing longer-term support.

Everyone’s situation is different, and the aim is always to find the best solution for each individual. We believe that every disabled person has the right to be properly heard, and to have choice and control over their lives.

It would be a shame if the income maximisation policy of NHS Estates and the repercussions of PFI deprive Brent residents of this service.

Brent disabled charity threatened as NHS increases rent to market rates

My article on plans for the 'NHS Estate' elicited a comment about the future of Brent Advocacy Concerns LINK who are faced with a possible increase in their rent at Willesden Centre for Health and Care  LINK to market rates as part of the monetisation of NHS property.

BAC is a charity run by disabled people themselves.

John Healy, a South Kilburn resident and volunteer at Brent Advocacy Concerns, has provided further detail about the situation BAC faces:

Today at 12.30pm our landlords have called another 'building users meeting' (5 previous ones so far) but we have never been invited to attend any of them, including that meeting.  I intend to attend it as we have been there since the centre opened and on the previous site in Harlesden Road since 1991 and we are tenants of sorts.  The problem is we were tenants of BADP, a limited company who were dissolved on the 1st March this year. 

We have been surviving on our reserves and without knowing if we can stay in our office, it has been impossible to plan anything.  We are still solvent but have not received any income since the 2011/12 financial year.  We have no waged staff any more and now only use volunteers including myself.  We decided a couple of years ago to have a 'new' website which we now have and we are able to give advice and information to people who email or phone us.  We can no longer provide advocacy itself so we are only a shadow of our former selves.  But if we lose the office, it is more than likely that we will close down.

Both the council and the NHS have both been saying they are finding it difficult to reach 'marginalised groups' like disabled people but they have never contacted us, even though we are in the council's own directory.  We also help people with The Care Act 2014 in providing some disabled people with information they may need to understand it. Now our work is limited by the uncertainty about our future.

Just to conclude, there are approximately 50,000 disabled and people with a long term illness in Brent (refer to borough's diversity plan 2015-19 which is in The Wellbeing & Scrutiny Committee and the 2011 census) but we are the only disabled charity left.  The council might argue that is not the case but all the other services are companies first, with a charitable part to their business.  There are other charities as well but they cater for specific ethnic groups.

Brent Advocacy Concerns is looking for new trustees

                                    

Are looking for New Trustees

   BAC has been supporting Disabled People in Brent since 1988 and are looking for trustees who can help take us forward in these challenging times.

  We are seeking people who:

·      Feel they can support the aims and objectives of the organisation and the social model of disability.

·      Have a knowledge of disability issues either by personal experience or by close association with disabled people (75% of our trustees should define as disabled)

·      Are able to commit to 6 meetings a year at a mutually agreed time.

·      Feel a connection to our work and will spread the word

·      Would like to help to develop the organisation

·      Could be pro-active in helping to raise funding, sponsorship etc.

·      Could support the organisation with any skills they may have e.g. experience of disability, organising, IT, website design, management or business skills, legal knowledge, accounting, social media etc.

·      Live in the GLA area

We can offer:

·      Disability, equality awareness training

·      Management Committee training and out of pocket expenses

·      The chance to make a difference for disabled people in Brent and surrounding areas.

·      An opportunity to improve skills.

If you, or anyone you know, is interested in joining us please contact John Healy by 3^rd April 2015.

020 8459 1493

bacadvocacy@outlook.com     or       innit67@icloud.co

Brent Advocacy Concerns, Willesden Centre for Health and Care, Robson Avenue, London NW10 3RY. Registered Charity Number 1001369