Birmingham City Council Adult Social Care

Me and my wife are suffering from Dementia and Alzheimer’s. Our social care allowance (Funding) was stopped in December 2019. I appealed against the decision and was following it up with no response. Now they say service has been suspended for the community. They need to improve their customer services and communication with people who need quick help and support.

Online survey questionnaire: What has worked well for you during lockdown?
Answer: Government registration enabled access to online food delivery. This also meant that a telephone call was received from Birmingham city council offering help and the offer of a food parcel and assistance to collect medicine. Regular e mails have also been received from local councillor with excellent up to date information. I have accessed free ebooks from Birmingham library service thanks to this.

Following a trumped up case of safeguarding alleged by housing officer I was visited by social worker. I did not need safeguarding and ii am not hoarding. Surely they have more urgent cases of child, elderly, disabled abuse, homelessness, to deal with.

Our community needs more free excess to gyms and getting active opportunities. Please help us to overcome inactivity by engaging us and by providing us with more free excess to such facilities.

Bad bad no help at all might as well nit bother 6 reffal and yet no help at all

My husband has a rare genetic disorder and he has just had an operation for his hand as he was not been able to use the hand at all. He can’t lift anything or put any pressure on his hands, therefore we need specialist equipment to allow him to be more independent in the house. We have asked the occupational therapy team to install special taps so he can get water by himself, but they have refused saying they have no funding to do that. We’ve had to go to charities to beg for them to help with equipment like hot water tap as he can’t lift the kettle. My husband also suffers from poor mental health so all of this is adding to the stress. We have some equipment such as electric bath lift but would also need additional hand reel, but if they are not able to provide the service then it is not helpful.

My mom returned to UK to find out she had been out of the country to long to receive most benefits, my sister had to remortgae her home and now a year later is still in debt.

I've had many people come and they just fill in numerous forms and then tell me to go online and see what support I would like, but I don't have time to do that. We get attendance allowance, the only helpful service from the council was the benefit advisor. I would benefit from a day centre where we could go, the only one I found costs £45 a day. How am I support to know what I want if I am not being told about it? I was told about a lunch club, that was way too far for us to access. You just feel like another number in the sheet, another tick, another person dealt with. I don't know if I have had a carer's assessment.

Discharge team at QE Hospital gave wrong information regarding home care, it's not free and is now means tested. This caused a great deal of upset when social worker (facilitator) informed us 3 weeks later. We were handed lots of leaflets to read and verbal information which is hard to absorb/comprehend then told to 'make a decision' in a day. Social worker unhelpful, confrontational, almost bullying to the point I complained her manager. No one seems to know what they are doing and lacks person centred approach. Very distressing experience indeed.

Concerns about assessments and provider suitability for vulnerable citizens.