Falkirk Council will not discuss individual social work cases publicly. We have a duty to respect the confidentiality of our service users.
The Council works within the framework provided by the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act. We would only intervene to apply for a guardianship order where this was necessary and for the benefit of the adult and no-one else was proposing to make an application. We have a duty to so in those circumstances.
In order to take the decision on whether an application for a guardianship is necessary, our approach is arrange for relevant professionals and family members to meet in order that full information is available and all views can be taken into account.
Guardianship orders are most often required where a decision on the long term residence to meet the care needs of an adult needs to be taken, the adult cannot make that decision on account of their incapacity and there is no other person in place with authority to take the decision, for instance, where a welfare power of attorney has been granted by the adult.
Ultimately, the decision on whether a guardianship order is necessary is for the sheriff, not the Council.
Adults involved in this process will be provided with an independent advocate who will be available to advocate for them.
We should never cease to be impressed by the bureaucratic ability to reduce the human race – even suffering members of it – to the status of ‘service users’. We should never cease to be bemused by the almost invariable official recourse to ‘confidentiality’ even when the service users whose confidentiality is being ‘respected’ long most of all for a candid and open discussion of their case.
Nonetheless, we must be grateful for Falkirk Council’s statement to the Scottish Review yesterday afternoon. It defines the limits of the council’s powers. It makes it clear that, whatever was said by social workers in this case, and whatever they are being encouraged to do in general under the legislation, SR’s interpretation of the law is correct: a local authority is not entitled to apply for a guardianship order where there is an individual (in this case three individuals) with an interest in the patient’s welfare.
So a kind of victory has been achieved. But it is not a victory for Robert Lapsley. There remains the issue of his desperate health. Was it an adverse reaction to new medication? Why were his and his family’s complaints about the apparent side-effects of this medication disregarded? If, however, it was not an adverse reaction to new medication, what else might it be? Is there any hope of recovery, even partial? What form of treatment would be best? We are no nearer having these questions answered. The doctors who prescribed the medication were not present yesterday to deal with any of them. And, most urgently, Falkirk Infirmary closes in a few weeks – yet we are told that Robert cannot be moved anywhere without a guardianship order and that such an order might take many weeks if not months for his family to obtain.
A former chief social work adviser for Scotland says elsewhere in this edition that SR’s exposure of the Lapsley case should lead to new and better legislation to support such vulnerable people. We hope he is right. But there is a more immediate dilemma.
What is to happen to Robert Lapsley? Where is he to go?
Kenneth Roy is editor of the Scottish Review
Get the
Scottish Review
in your inbox
free of charge
We need your help to maintain our inquiring journalism. Become
a Friend of SR
[click here]
The Library
Recent articles
[click here]
The holiday
edition
09.07.10-
02.08.10
No 282
Our favourite
places in Scotland
A selection of nominations
by SR writers and readers
[click here]
Faces of the
year…so far
A selection of
Bob Smith’s caricatures
[click here]
North to the
‘simmer dim’
R D Kernohan’s
summer journey to Orkney
and Shetland
[click here]
Daydreams
Francis O Young
Fragments of a life
[click here]
Ironing a sari
The July poem
Gerard Rochford
[click
here]
A surprise
from Islay
Bob Smith has completed
a new work and here it is
[click
here]
Next edition:
Tuesday 3 August
SR recommends for lively discussion of current politics:
www.scotlandquovadis.net
SR recommends for intelligent comment on Scottish literature: