Here are some of the activities of RAGE National in the last 18 months and where we spent some of your money on providing support for the campaigns below. The writer has travelled across the country speaking at public meetings and organising campaigns almost entirely at his own expense. We receive no regular grants and rely on one grateful lady to fund the bigger projects. Major Charities refer people to us but contribute nothing. Elizabeth has kindly funded this web site. We do not charge for anything we do, in fact the opposite. Where necessary we offer ‘start up money’ to help form new groups of residents and relatives so that individuals do not bear the financial burden of running the campaign. Sometimes the groups raise their own funds and manage to
repay us.
Latest from Solicitor Advocate Yvonne Hossack...
Thank you for your interest in 101 year old Sarah Rutter who was recently evicted from her care home and away from the carers who had looked after her for some years.
I have appealed to the European Court of Human Rights.
Sarah's family - see below - have consented to the press release of this application which they are selflessly giving their time to in order to try to save all the other Sarahs. What we are saying is that there is no effective remedy for such cruelty in the United Kingdom (breach of Article 13). We are saying that the eviction of elderly people so as to sell the land on which their homes once stood is torture (breach of Article 3 HRA) and brings about death (breach of Article 2 HRA). The Corporate Homicide Act specifically excludes Local Authorities from a charge in relation to the deaths that are caused when care homes are closed.
What we are asking the ECHR for is as follows:
15.4. Article 13. In the United Kingdom, elderly and demented residents of care homes - indeed, the residents of all care homes - do not have security of tenure. Furthermore, they have no right of appeal to an independent Court in respect of a decision to close their home. The only right they do have is a Judicial Review, and this is a complicated process unknown to the vast majority of such residents. Judicial Review cannot overturn a decision because the State feels it to be "wrong". Claimants have to rely on legal arguments in relation to how the decision was made. In reaching such a decision, which will be hazardous to the majority of elderly residents in care homes, the State is not required, according to the Rutter judgement, even to tell those affected that there may be a risk to their health or life. Accordingly, the quality of responses to consultation will be adversely affected and relatives may well believe it to be in the best interests of their impaired residents to move them quickly. In fact, were they to be obliged to have the knowledge of risk, it may be that more would seek legal advice. It is Mrs Rutter’s advocate’s intention that in all such cases, residents and relatives must, in order to comply with the positive duty of Article 2, be informed of the risk to health and life, and urged to seek independent legal advice.
You may be interested to know that the State has very much picked up the disgraceful complaints of disgruntled 3rd parties against me and ordered that I be prosecuted for the work that I do without their being a shred of evidence that I did anything wrong and without a single care home client or relative complaining. Indeed many nominated me for Human Rights awards this year. My wonderful clients and carers are mounting an Australian theme protest for the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal believing, as they do, that this will be a kangaroo court. We have T-shirts commissioned with arrows on them. And, as you would expect, there are inflatable kangaroos for us to tie down outside the Tribunal.
RAGE Staffordshire’s campaign has ended with seven of the Residential Care Homes being saved and significant changes made to the plans for the learning difficulties facilities.
This is a tremendous success as the original plan was to close all the facilities and transfer provision to the private sector.
RAGE Staffordshire
After the demonstration on 17th October by RAGE campaigners with Lady Godiva, Councillor Woodward said on Radio Stoke and in the press "You don’t need to demonstrate, I am willing to meet with you all and discuss the changes"
Councillor Woodward, together with all Staffordshire MPs, has been invited to a public meeting for facility users, RAGE supporters, relatives and carers, on Friday 9th November at Queens Street Community Centre, Burton on Trent DE14 3LW at 7.p.m. This would have given the Councillor an opportunity to present the Changing Lives policy to the people it directly affects. She has declined this offer and RAGE campaigners feel this makes a mockery of her offer of "any time, any place, anywhere" for a meeting. To date Charlotte Atkins MP, Joan Walley MP and Robert Flello MP have all agreed to attend.
Lady Godiva sends Cllr Woodward a challenge back; "Come out of the woodwork and face the people of who’s live’s you are proposing to tear apart, away from their own friends and family."
Relatives have announced that a cardboard cut out will represent the Councillor!"
RAGE Staffordshire
I would like to ask for your prayers for Solicitor Yvonne Hossack, a committed Christian, who faces a wasted costs order in the High Court in London to be brought by Staffordshire County Council on Thursday August the 23rd.
Should this succeed and it be enforced, bankruptcy followed by loss of her livelihood and home will follow.
Her crime is to use her God given skills to defend (successfully so far) the frail and vulnerable of this County from eviction and reduction/removal of their Social Services (22 Residential Care Homes, 15 day Centres for the elderly and 12 day centres for those with learning difficulties).
After a similar attempt by another Council, which was not enforced, the Judge said, and I quote:
"In some ways she is an admirable figure. It is a difficult decision to make. It is wrong to make a draconian decision….. I do not think it proportionate or just to make the Order… The least injustice would be done by confining her liability to the costs of this hearing".
RAGE Staffordshire
On July the 4th over a hundred relatives, residents and service users from all over Staffordshire are travelling to Houses of Parliament,Parliament Square, to stage a protest outside at 12:00 pm. Protesters will be following the 4th July theme with flags, banners, teeshirts and demanding their own Declaration of Independence.” Everyone who wants to stop the slow death of Social Care should attend.
Under the RAGE Staffordshire banner and representing over 700 service users, both the elderly and those with learning difficulties, are protesting against Staffordshire County Council’s “Changing Lives” (nicknamed “Ending Lives”) policy which sees the closure of 22 Residential Care Homes and 15 Day Centres for the elderly originally anticipated March 2008 and 12 Day Centres for those with Learning Difficulties in March 2009.
The protestors will also be in the Royal Courts of Justice to hear their legal challenge in the Court of Appeal.
RAGE Staffordshire
RAGE Staffordshire skilfully promoted a Tactical Voting campaign across the County and they even fielded their own candidate (8.3% of the votes) for the local Councill elections. The Labour local Councillors paid a heavy price for their County counterparts decisions re the Care Homes and Day Centres including well known local names. Staffordshire County Council have now announced that they are going to do a real Consultation but out of the three choices they can only afford one but you can choose.... “We have also paid a lot of money for a consultancy company to do it for us so that it will all be their fault when it goes wrong and we get taken back to Court” Shouldn't be too long to wait. A Court of Appeal action is likely to be brought.
RAGE Staffordshire
Yvonne Hossack, Solicitor for many of those effected said :-
"Williams J has said I should appeal both his Order and that of Parker J direct to the Court of Appeal and I will appeal his Order but not the earlier one. Parker J was in a different position. He did not see the Press Release, the email from Eric Robinson to his staff. Nor did he see the email from Carol Lovatt talking of 'closure schedules'. Nor the subsequent Witness Statement from Mr Skerman repeating, despite Parker J's judgment, that the Council had made 'in principle decisions'. No one else who has seen those emails has been in any doubt about the Council's intentions to close."
Thameside, Katherine House, Residential Care Home.Another Judicial Review in which we gained important concessions for the
transferring residents. We helped organise their campaign and funded their trip to the High Court. For one resident it went on to the Court of Appeal where he won the right to psychiatric oversight and the choice of home.
Bristol, Residential Care Homes. Same situation but without a judicial review.
Johnson vs L.B. Havering
"On June the 21st the House of Lords delivered their Judgement on YL vs Birmingham which had been conjoined with Johnson vs L.B. Havering.
The Judgement 'Exercise of delegated council duty is a private function' saw the Law Lords defeating the two cases, 3 Judges in favour with two dissenting. The dissenting opinions were highly critical of the likely impact on hundreds of thousands of elderly frail in the UK.
Yvonne Hossack of Hossack & Co Solicitors for the Havering claimants has been instructed by one of the claimants, Victor Thomas to Appeal to the European Court of Human Rights."
Johnson vs L.B. Havering appeared in the House of Lords in the guise of Y.L. vs Birmingham C.C. A case that was settled some 4 months ago but is under the control of the Lord Chancellor and can be seen to win without giving the slightest credit to all those who fought so hard in Havering. It went well and the judgement is expected in 3 months time.
Johnson vs LB of Havering. This campaign that has kept the last four of the Borough’s Residential Care Homes open for over six years. The case has now gone to the Court of Appeal in order to overturn a previous Court of Appeal Judgement. We are supported in our Appeal by the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, Lord Falconer. This seeks to establish that a Private Residential Care Home is in fact performing a public function and the residents remain the responsibility of the Local Authority, unlike now when homes can close in days with no regard to the welfare of the residents. This has massive implications beyond Care Homes and will include any private sector operation. A major achievement for us to change the Law.
Latest News...
Havering (Johnson vs L.B. Havering) is now on it's way to the House of Lords. "permission is granted to appeal to the House of Lords on the question of whether a private care provider is carrying out a public function within the meaning of section 6(3)(b) of the Human Rights Act 1998". The hearing originally scheduled for the latter part of the year will now take place on April 30th.
McKellar vs LB Hounslow. William Leaver died within a few weeks of transfer despite careful preparation with medical oversight. Organised the local RAGE campaign.
Bury Resource Centre. This provided vital support for learning and disabled children, some very seriously disadvantaged. The loss of this service would have serious effects on the well being of the hundreds of service users and their families.(Suicides were threatened.) We aided the service users with their Judicial Review application. Partially funded the trip to the High Court. Bury Metropolitan Council quashed their decision to close.
St Helens, Delamere House. Another tragedy prompting a RAGE National campaign. In Haggerty -v- St Helens Council, seven residents died within three months of involuntary transfer. The Author asked Mr Rheinberg HM Coroner for Cheshire to investigate these deaths. Mr Rheinberg appointed Professor Alistair Burns of the University of Manchester to report on the effects of those residents of moving from Delamere House Nursing Home. In his Report Professor Burns says: ‘Taken as a group, the deaths of the seven residents are most probably in keeping with the demonstrated excess mortality that occurs when older frail people, particularly those with advanced dementia are moved from one institution to another…’
Madden vs Bury. Margaret Hill, the Second Claimant, died of a stroke soon after Bury MBC entered into a second Consultation after the case succeeded. Another RAGE campaign. Dudley v East Sussex County Council. Clara Dudley was provided with a sensitive transfer plan. Her unreasonable fears – that no-one would know where she had gone – were addressed. Her reasonable fear that she would lose contact with her Keyworker was worked through so that contractual arrangements were made for frequent visits during the weeks after transfer and thereafter weekly visits. Clara was fully involved in choosing soft furnishings for her room and appeared to enjoy that process. Nevertheless Clara suffered a catastrophic stroke upon returning from her first visit to her new home. That the stroke was brought about by the visit is assumed from Clara saying ‘Don’t move me, please don’t make me go, I don’t want to move’ immediately preceding the stroke. Clara lost sight, speech and the ability to swallow. She was PEG fed to her stomach until she died 15 months later. RAGE organised a massive campaign in Hastings with National TV / Newspaper / Radio coverage. Her daughter, Norma Dudley appeared on TV and also did
Radio interviews. This is a classic example of closure going wrong.