Norfolk Law 33 online edition

Norfolk Law Magazine of the Norfolk & Norwich Law Society - www.nnls.org - Autumn 2017

Inside...

All the pictures from this year’s Annual Dinner and Award Winners, the Pub Quiz and UEA Law Lecture

Norfolk Law - Contents - 3

This issue...

In this edition we dedicate page after page to photos of members at lectures, dinners, quizzes and the like! We also formally confirm the winners of our 2017 Awards for Excellence presented by Clive Coleman at the Annual Dinner. The UEA Law Lecture was well attended, looking at diversity in the profession and we also include part of the lecture delivered by the new head of Liberty at the NCLS Annual Lecture.

Another busy edition to round off the year!

Norfolk L Magazine

aw

of the Norf olk & Norw ich Law Soci ety - www.nnls .org - Autu mn 2017

Inside...

All the pict ures from this Winners, the yea Pub Quiz and r’s Annual Dinner and Award UEA Law Lec ture

Contents 4

President’s Report

18

UEA Law Lecture

5

Committee

19

Tax Avoidance schemes and the Forensic Accountant

6

Events for 2018

20

Data protection law evolves into a new niche

8

Annual Dinner 2017

22

Five reasons to outsource your payroll

12

Award Winners

24

Anti-Money Laundering and Conveyancing

13

Obituary: Richard Skinner

26

Caught In The Act

14

Pub Quiz 2017

28

Legal Indemnity insurance continues to evolve

16

NCLS Annual Lecture

30

Caring for an older generation

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4 - Norfolk Law - President’s Report

President’s Report I am very pleased to be this year’s President of the Norfolk and Norwich Law Society and before I go any further, I must thank Dave Richards for all of his hard work as President during the last year. Dave will continue to be a member of the committee and as Immediate Past President his experience will be invaluable. Also, a very warm welcome to Richard Bailey of Steeles Law who becomes this year’s Vice President.

to legal aid and court services mean that access to justice by the most vulnerable in our society is a constant concern. We are fortunate to have a number of local resources where lawyers, supported by their firms, give up their time to volunteer and help bridge the advice gap that exists. As ever the Norfolk Community Law Service is at the forefront of this support.

The last year culminated in a fantastic dinner and there were many other highlights throughout the year as well as some excellent training and seminars, quiz and treasure hunt. This year promises to be very busy again with the return of some old favourites, including Countdown and some very interesting training events on the horizon too.

As the legal landscape shifts, so must the legal profession shift to meet the needs of clients and that can only be done by new lawyers entering the fray. We must ensure that those lawyers are drawn from all backgrounds and that just as access to justice is a challenge to be overcome, so must access to the profession be addressed. Over the next year I want to focus, with the support of the committee and local firms, on giving young people from different backgrounds the chance to consider a career in law and receive help and advice to fulfil their potential.

This year is the 175th Anniversary of the Norfolk and Norwich Law Society.

The legal landscape is ever-changing and it seems that every year, further challenges have to be faced by the legal profession. Continued cuts

Sue Bailey President Norfolk & Norwich Law Society

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Published Autumn 2017

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Norfolk Law - Committee - 5

6 - Norfolk Law - Events Preview

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8 - Norfolk Law - Event Review

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12 - Norfolk Law - Event Review

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Norfolk Law - Obituary - 13

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14 - Norfolk Law - Event Review

Pub Quiz 2017

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18 - Norfolk Law - Event Review

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Norfolk Law - Advertorial - 19

Tax avoidance schemes and the role of the forensic accountant

By Fiona Hotston Moore – Partner, Ensors Chartered Accountants

HMRC define tax avoidance as “… bending the rules of the tax system to gain a tax advantage that Parliament never intended. It often involves contrived, artificial transactions that serve little or no purpose other than to produce this advantage.

It involves operating within the letter, but not the spirit, of the law. Most tax avoidance schemes simply do not work, and those who engage in them can find they pay more than the tax they attempted to save, once HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have successfully challenged them.”

Over the last decade we have seen a substantial change in the approach and attitude to countering perceived tax avoidance by HMRC, politicians, the media and tax payers. HMRC have introduced more generic anti-avoidance legislation and more specific provisions aimed at stopping

particular tax schemes. They have also been far more successful in winning cases in the tax tribunal and high court.

As a forensic accountant and expert witness I am seeing a significant increase in the number of cases involving tax avoidance schemes either as the key constituent of the dispute or as a factor in a wider dispute.

Cases I have recently acted upon include: • Ongoing disputes between the tax payer and HMRC in relation to tax avoidance schemes including film schemes and EBTs. Typically the scheme promoter will take the lead in defending the tax position with HMRC. As a forensic accountant I have been appointed to act as expert witness in the tax tribunal or high court case giving an opinion on whether the accounts are drawn up in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Practice

(GAAP). I may also advise the tax payer on the likely outcome of the tax dispute and settlement options.

• Professional negligence claims against accountants, tax advisers and lawyers in relation to schemes which have not given the expected tax savings.

As schemes fail in the tax tribunal or high court, or as tax payers agree to settle the dispute with HMRC, we are inevitably seeing tax payers individually, or as a group, bringing claims against professional advisers who are still around and are perceived to have the resource to make a claim worthwhile. This tends to mean claims are being brought not necessarily against the promoters but instead against the accountant or lawyer who made the introduction. The key to defending such claims is an understanding not just of tax legislation but also of best practice at the time the tax scheme was invested in, which is typically at least a

decade ago. I have acted as expert witness defending a firm of accountants whose clients invested in a scheme akin to a film partnership and we were able to show that the accountants had followed best practice and advised appropriately based on tax legislation and case law at that time. We are also seeing other cases involving EBTs. • Film scheme and other tax avoidance liabilities are also appearing frequently in cases involving divorce, shareholder disputes and business sales. In a recent divorce case we were required to quantify the likely tax liability including penalties resulting from the involvement of Mr X in a variety of tax schemes. Whilst some of the tax disputes had not yet been resolved the arbitrator needed an independent view of the likely outcome. Similarly, we have been instructed to quantify the likely tax liabilities on tax schemes in which companies have engaged in either to assist in a valuation for divorce, business sale or shareholder dispute.

And finally, with the arrival of Accelerated Payment Notices and Follower Notices, we are also now seeing the impact on the solvency of individuals and companies who are being forced to pay the disputed tax even if they wish to continue to fight their tax case against through the courts.

Fiona Hotston Moore T: 07770 642 491 E: Fiona.hotstonmoore@ ensors.co.uk www.ensors.co.uk/for-lawsoc/

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20 - Norfolk Law - Advertorial

Data protection law evolves into a new niche We are at present seemingly swamped by marketing materials which are keen to point out the financial consequences of non compliance with the new EU wide data protection regulation, the GDPR1, which is due to come into force on 25th May 2018. This legislation, despite the inevitable cost to business in terms of change to process and procedure, is badly needed for the protection of all of us. The stealing of personal data for nefarious reasons is becoming more and more common and it is right that the law evolves to protect its citizens.

Hailed by many as a “revolution”, we prefer to think of it as an “evolution” to fill a niche largely created by e-communication.

For those of us involved in resolving family law cases using DNA testing technology, there are now some additional considerations, notably those relating to genetic information that could have derived from, say, a paternity test. For the first time, these data, along with biometric data are specifically mentioned in the legislation and are classified as sensitive personal information, along with religious beliefs, physical and mental health and ethnic origin. This is long overdue.

Nothing is closer to your very being than your own unique genetic code. Analysis of your genes can already tell a lot about you, in the future this will be substantially more. Predicting (yes predicting, not just diagnosing) diseases, abilities or preferences all come under the spotlight. For those of you that think that the ability of ISPs to present advertisements based on your surfing activity is bad enough, it is truly little compared to what could be done with access to your genetic data.

The key to unlocking your code is the physical DNA itself, which can be isolated from a bodily sample, most

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simply a cheek swab or saliva sample to collect some cells from inside the mouth. In a paternity test we look at regions of DNA that are to be found throughout your personal DNA code (your genome). For the most part, these regions (the DNA profile) have no functional consequence, they are just markers in the sand. They are powerful enough though, to identify your immediate family and who is, or is not, the father of a child. It is this DNA profile that you may hear about as being stored on DNA databases and retrieved for example, in connection with a crime.

More imperative to consider is the rise of companies which obtain your DNA sample and sequence the entire genome or make a detailed map, thus providing you with a report on say, your distant ancestry or changes in your genome which relate to disease pre-disposition or other characteristics. These data are necessarily far from complete and conclusions are far from absolute, yet these providers often continue to hold the DNA, sample and data. Consumers may find that they have agreed to retention of their DNA and the sharing of their genetic data (sometimes with payment) with third parties for other purposes. The consent these companies have obtained from consumers is not a fully informed consent as there may be risks and consequences that currently cannot be foreseen. The retention of genetic information is in fact broader than that too…such information is being held by healthcare providers and by universities and indeed, sometimes without limitation of time. You may have heard of “biobanks”, where genetic information is held for the purpose of “research”…i.e. DNA data mining, which is often carrying a tenuous rationality.

This is precisely why GDPR is needed, consent buried in T&Cs is not a fair consent and the explicit “opt-in” required under GDPR will mean that consumers genetic

data cannot now just be held in the expectation that an opportunity will arise for the testing company, without the consent of the donor to the use of their data in the new circumstances. GDPR also means that there will need to be accountability for the genetic data stored and how it is used. This is in no part a complete block on important genetic developments; GDPR is quite rightly asking for accountability for the DNA data, as it does with other pieces of Personally Identifiable Information (PII).

In family law cases, which generally involved DNA profiling, reasonable steps must be taken to protect clients data. Given the complexity of the cases we generally have to deal with, e.g. multiple solicitors representing different clients, the involvement of social services and local authorities, court orders, private individuals and international cases (including immigration), there is a veritable minefield of responsibility which must be attended to under GDPR. Coupled with the need of many to improve general internal practices (location of data, how it is used and shared, accessing from off site, cloud storage) GDPR will bring significant audit responsibility to the legal profession and it subcontractors.

We stand ready to work with you on these complex issues. What will arise will be a better system where genetic and other data is properly accounted for.

Dr Neil Sullivan, BSc., MBA (DIC), LLM, PhD. General Manager, Complement Genomics Ltd. (trading as www.dadcheckgold.com) The General Data Protection Regulation see https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-thegeneral-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/

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22 - Norfolk Law - Advertorial

Five reasons to outsource your payroll

By Julian Bryan, Managing Director, Quill The clock is ticking for UK employers who haven’t yet gone live with auto enrolment workplace pensions. The final staging dates are imminent and The Pensions Regulator is now routinely publishing details of employers who’ve been ordered to pay fines for ignoring new pension rules.

If you’re not compliant already, now’s the time to act. However, if you’re battling to get to grips with auto enrolment (and we wouldn’t be surprised; it hasn’t been labelled “the biggest shake up of pension reform for a generation” for nothing!), there’s never been a better time to outsource the increasingly burdensome payroll function.

“You’re bound to say that!” we hear you shout. And, yes, we agree with you. As an outsourced service supplier, it’s in our best interests to promote outsourcing at every opportunity.

But, we anticipate some scepticism which is why we’ve helpfully compiled a compelling list of five good reasons in our attempt to convince you that we’re not being entirely selfish.

We’re actually doing our bit to help you cope with mandatory pension reform and avoid costly financial penalties or irreversible reputational damage.

So, without further delay, let the five reasons begin:1. Auto enrolment applies to everyone Even if you employ just one person, you’re still obliged to provide a workplace pension. In other words, there’s no avoiding it. It’s

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the law. Whether you’re a small, medium or large-sized business, you have a legal requirement to comply by your allocated staging date.

We strongly recommend checking your staging date as soon as practicably possible.

It’s easy to do. First, hunt out your PAYE reference. This is conveniently located on all your company’s HMRC documents.

It takes a 3-digit, 7-character format, for example, 913 / WZ5121A. Armed with your unique identifier, go to the online staging date tool at www.thepensionsregulator. g o v. u k / e m p l o y e r s / s t a g i n g date.aspx, enter your PAYE code, complete the recaptcha box and click the ‘Show my staging date’ button.

2. Punishments are enforced Just as with any breaches of the law, there are punishments for non-compliance. The Pensions Regulator is empowered by the UK Government to regulate and fine businesses who don’t comply, whether deliberately or unintentionally. Financial penalties range from £400 fixed penalty notices right up to £50,000 civil penalties for companies failing to engage with auto enrolment or pay contributions due.

And it’s not just the financial cost, although this is obviously deterrent enough.

The negative publicity surrounding your unlawful activity may cause irreparable damage to your professional reputation.

As a legal service provider, this is extremely embarrassing.

Even worse, you may lose clients as their trust in you becomes questionable and, as a result, they begin to conduct their legal affairs elsewhere with one of your (delighted!) competitors.

3. Managing work-based pensions is demanding and complicated Even before your staging date arrives, there’s a lot to do. This includes assessing your workforce to see who’s eligible (against defined criteria), choosing a pension scheme (from an auto enrolment ready pension provider) and communicating with your staff regarding their options.

One of your earliest decisions relates to the individual pay components which determine your employees’ qualifying earnings, for example overtime, commission and bonuses. It’s up to you to make a reasonable judgement as to whether each element fits within the definition of qualifying earnings.

All this lengthy preparation is stressful enough without a lastminute rush by businesses who’ve left it until the eleventh hour to prepare. Much more so, if you have!

And, even when you’ve reached your staging date, your responsibilities don’t end there. Employees must be reassessed, contributions recalculated, opt-ins added, optouts removed with refunds given each payroll cycle. Not forgetting general record keeping and reporting which is part-andparcel of maintaining a clear audit trail of transactions. It’s a mammoth task and one which needs tackled every few weeks ad infinitum.

The main reason cited by businesses postponing their staging date is an inability to cope with the excessive amount of prescribed paperwork. Despite being on the horizon for years, firms are continually caught unawares by the sheer volume of work involved preparing for auto enrolment.

4. Selecting a pension provider is a difficult decision Pension providers are much of a muchness, offering the same service for the same fee, right? Wrong! With no restrictions on charges, some providers are applying additional administration costs. Providers’ benefits, such as range of investment options and webbased software support, vary drastically too.

Your choice of pension provider will influence the costs to your business of auto enrolment as well as determine the administrative processes involved. So, the small print matters and needs to be carefully checked, compared and questioned before you sign on the dotted line.

5. There are other payroll duties to manage too To top it all, your payroll clerk (who may also be your business manager, accounts clerk, general administration assistant, receptionist or everything combined!) has all his / her existing responsibilities to take care of. Your employees’ salaries, for instance. After all, unless they’re working on a voluntary basis, at the end of each month, your employees have to get paid.

On a standalone basis, payroll management can be a full time job, covering salary processing, SMP, SPP and PAYE payments, payslip production, in-year and year-end reporting, as stipulated by ever-changing HMRC legislation.

A heavier workload resulting from the introduction of auto enrolment pensions and, suddenly, the role assumes unmanageable proportions. The net result of overwork is often stress at work. This isn’t pleasant

Norfolk Law - Advertorial - 23 for your struggling employee, who may require long-term sickness leave for recovery purposes, or for you dealing with the fallout, sharing your absent staff member’s duties between present employees or recruiting temporary stand-ins.

As a Bacs-authorised bureau (more on this later), we’re permitted to perform your payroll function on your behalf, including transferring money from your business bank account directly into your employees’ bank accounts to pay their monthly salaries, thus significantly lightening the load on you.

These five reasons are specifically related to payroll and pensions.

There are, of course, many other reasons to outsource complex, heavily regulated back office business functions. For example, lower operational costs, enhanced risk management, compliance assurance, availability of valueadded support, automatic emergency planning, built-in

disaster recovery, scalability, healthier cash flow and business development assistance… to name a few.

Read our earlier “Ten reasons to outsource your cashiering” guide at www.quill.co.uk/10reasons for full details because, although specifically related to outsourced legal cashiering, the substantial list of benefits is equally resonant when the topic’s focused on outsourced payroll.

a service you can depend upon, leaving you free to focus on running your business with complete confidence that your payroll and pensions couldn’t be in safer hands.

Visit our dedicated Quill Payroll website at www.quillpayroll.co.uk, email info@quillpayroll.co.uk or phone 0845 226 2587.

Julian Bryan joined Quill as Managing Director in 2012 and is also the Chair of the Legal Software Suppliers Association. Quill is the UK’s largest outsourced legal cashiering provider with 40 years’ experience supplying outsourced services and software to the legal profession.

To wind up, then, hopefully by now you’ve gained a better understanding of what’s demanded by auto enrolment.

You may also have come to the conclusion that you simply don’t have the capacity to cope in house with your already-stretched human resources. In which case, our Quill Payroll outsourcing service is an increasingly appealing option.

HMRC approved, Bacs registered, Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals accredited, 40+ years experienced, Quill Payroll is

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24 - Norfolk Law - Advertorial

Anti-Money Laundering: What’s changed and what this means for UK conveyancers The European Union’s Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive was implemented into UK law on June 26th.

As a result there are changes to how law firms must conduct customer due diligence and an increased focus on the need to incorporate ongoing and documented risk assessment.

needs to be evidenced by a documented risk assessment. In simple terms, this means that all conveyancing clients must be risk-assessed, regardless of country of origin, services purchased or delivery channels. Moreover, the risk assessment now needs to include Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) and Financial Sanctions screening.

What’s the risk?

2. Ongoing record-keeping and transparency

There are regulatory and legal / criminal penalties in place for non-compliance. This includes fines of up to £1 million and prison sentences from two to seven years.

Risk assessments must be kept and made available to regulators.

This is worth noting as it is the first time that firms are explicitly being told to document and file risks in this way.

What’s changed?

How an electronic AML search can help

1. Customer due diligence and risk assessment

An AML search facilitates risk assessment by combining all processes and records in one automated system. It enables firms to search for adverse information on a client more thoroughly than they would be able to do manually, and it ensures that compliance procedures are adopted firm-wide.

Under the new legislation the choice regarding level of due diligence is more limited. There is no longer any automatic exemption from enhanced due diligence. A decision to apply simplified due diligence

A typical AML search offers: Automated risk assessment

This includes automated screening of Sanctions, PEPs and alert lists and multiple confirmation of identity, address and birth.

Choice of due diligence level

Users can opt for either simplified or enhanced due diligence.

Simplified due diligence is typically for “low risk” transactions whereas enhanced due diligence is for “medium or high risk work”.

On-going compliance

The system continues to monitor risk-assessed clients, alerting you if documentation or data may affect the result of the original assessment.

Automated record keeping

An AML search also automates record-keeping and audit. Users have the option to add, certify and manage customer documents within the due diligence record.

Geodesys offers an AML search at a cost of £6 (inc VAT) for enhanced due diligence. For more information please see our frequently-asked questions on AML for conveyancers at www.geodesys.com/aml-directive-faq

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26 - Norfolk Law - Advertorial

Caught in the Act As part of a stream of legislation to hit the professional services sector, one of the latest is The Criminal Finances Act 2017.

The Act renders companies and partnerships, ‘relevant bodies’, criminally liable if they fail to prevent its representatives from committing the facilitation of tax evasion. Representatives are associated persons including employees, anyone acting on their behalf or an agent. If guilty, businesses face unlimited fines and consequential sanctions within their industry or profession.

This Act creates an offence which does not require the directors/partners to have had any knowledge of the offence in question. The offence is the failure to prevent the crimes of those who act for or on behalf of the relevant body instead of criminal acts by that body itself.

For a firm to be criminally liable under the new Act: • there must be a criminal act of tax evasion • the crime was facilitated or carried out by a person associated with a relevant body • the relevant body failed to initiate adequate prevention procedures in relation to the act carried out by the associated person

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Of course the first two stages are already criminal offences but the third is new.

Examples of facilitation could include misleading invoices (to look like a tax deductible expense) or incorrect allocation of costs for different work which has a tax consequence.

A defence is available when ‘reasonable prevention procedures’ were put in place to prevent the associated person from facilitating the evasion; or that it would have been unreasonable or disproportionate to expect such procedures to be in place.

Reasonable prevention procedures should be based on six principles: 1. risk assessment – the relevant body should assess the nature and extent of the risk of an associated person facilitating tax evasion; 2. proportionality – procedures should be proportionate to the risk and take into account the nature, scale and complexity of the relevant body’s activities;

3. top level commitment – management should be committed to preventing illegal facilitation of tax evasion and should foster a culture that facilitation of tax evasion is never acceptable; 4. due diligence – appropriate risk based procedures with respect to all people who perform services on behalf of the relevant body; 5. communication – training staff and ensuring the message effectively gets across to all employees and agents; 6. monitoring and reviewing – regular review and update of preventative procedures where necessary.

So in conclusion full written policies and procedures are essential for preventing any organisation being caught out by the act of their employees, however unintentional those acts may have been.

Paul Briddon Lovewell Blake

28 - Norfolk Law - Advertorial

Legal Indemnity insurance continues to evolve If you’re involved in conveyancing, you’ll be only too familiar with having to arrange legal indemnity insurance. Insurance is often used to satisfy lender requirements, where speed is of the essence to complete a transaction. The availability and delivery of legal indemnity services has changed over recent years and continues to evolve.

So what’s changed - are all legal indemnity services the same?

Whatever your views on insurance, it is now applied to a greater percentage of transactions than ever before. The days of waiting for an insurer to reply to a letter or even an email for the most commonly requested indemnity policies has mostly gone. We’ve been through the period of the call centre to arrange insurance, followed by the paper based ‘self-issue’ pack – itself a significant change in its time!

Inevitably, the next advancement was to take the self-issue pack to online, this led to online services offering

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even more insurance products and flexibility, joining the technological trend to ordering searches, titles and other related services online.

The move to online has, of course, not only improved the speed within which solicitors can obtain legal indemnity quotes and policies, but has also brought about reduced premium charges for clients, particularly as more insurance providers have moved business online.

Client demands and expectations have also changed. We live in a world where there is demand not only for great service and advice, but also choice and value for money.

The Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Treating Customer Fairly (TCF) initiative aims to raise standards in the way firms carry on their business, bringing about changes to benefit consumers, and increase their confidence in the financial services industry. TCF is recognised by The Solicitors Regulatory Authority as a core outcome of Client Care including, amongst other desired outcomes, treating your client fairly and ensuring

they are in a position to make informed decisions about the services they need, how their matters will be handled, and the options available to them.

Most clients, when buying insurance or indeed other services, look for and compare a choice of quotes to make an informed decision about what they are buying. Comparison sites have been around for general insurance, as an example, for many years now.

Even if a client chooses not to arrange insurance themselves and goes to an insurance professional such as a broker, the broker will usually obtain a choice of quotes or insurance options to present to the client for consideration or recommend from a choice as to which best suits the clients needs.

For solicitors acting on a client’s behalf in arranging legal indemnity insurance, it has always been more difficult to obtain several quotes for comparison to determine what might be best for the client’s demands and needs. To get a choice of quotes, a solicitor had to visit each providers website and complete each insurer’s online

application, write to the providers or wade through a selection of self-issue packs (assuming they have yet to adopt the move to online services).

However, legal indemnity insurance solutions such as DUAL’s ‘My Legal Indemnity Shop’ online service now takes things forward to the next stage by offering solicitors (and clients) a choice of up to 3 quotes from different insurers, all from a single website and simple quote application.

Whilst many legal indemnity insurance products are tried and tested and vary little between insurers beyond price, provision and delivery of legal indemnity insurance continues to evolve. New services such as ‘My Legal Indemnity Shop’ are another step forwards towards providing greater choice when placing legal indemnity insurance and, perhaps, go some way in helping solicitors achieve core outcomes such as Client Care and Treating Customers Fairly when giving advice to clients on these insurances.

Mark Dennis, Head of Residential Risks, DUAL Asset Underwriting

30 - Norfolk Law - Advertorial

Caring for an older generation will not improve until information about care services and all related factors are freely and visually available.

As a care provider of 37 years we are experienced on not only how we provide our own live-in care services but on how other related professionals and organisations offer care, information, advice and guidance. Many older people and their families make decisions about their care at a time of crisis and unfortunately many such decisions are later regretted. To make a choice about an older person’s remaining years, information is the one powerful tool that will enable the right choice to be made for the individual. Sadly, the ability to easily access such material is lacking. As part of the volunteer role we offer to older people’s organisations, clubs and associations we give free presentations around the subject of health and care based on stories and history to make the time entertaining to the members. At the end of each presentation we are happy to answer practical questions about care today across the wide spectrum of the sector. Usually there is a queue that forms. The overwhelming message we take from these sessions is that the knowledge about: - what is available, entitlements, the cost, what is free, financial help and products and simply where to go is largely unknown.

We find that people are paying for care services that should be free/ part funded or where people are not receiving financial help that they are entitled to. Those who have experience of care, usually through a family member, again have little knowledge of the system and it often appears that they have been left without information which would complement the care they have experience of and make, in many cases, their lives easier. The prospect of needing care is one that no one wants to think about, but the reality is that some of us will require care support. To make this adjustment from being independent to a position where a person is dependent on others should be made as painless as possible and having some control of this time in a person’s life is made easier with information that can lead to choices being made.

Many information gateways with reference to care and health, are projects which run for a period, provide useful material, then financial cuts are needed, and the gateway disappears.

What can be done to improve this situation? Currently, Leaflets are available but not succinct. A better leaflet could have, for example, a list of subjects related to elderly care which offer contact details, (telephone numbers, helpline info, website details) to call or visit for a range of older care information. Libraries, hospitals, GP surgeries, community halls, chemists all could have the same leaflet, the branding becoming common knowledge and easy to recognise. A brand leaflet that can be localised.

Public sector advertising could play a large part especially as many older people watch day time television and listen to local radio. To provide such information would be a low-cost project but one of immense value.

Able Community Care has a strap line ‘It is better to know us and not need us than to need us and not know us’.

However, as far as care information is concerned this is a practical suggestion for any person/family to research any care provision before it becomes a necessity.

Angela Gifford MD of Able Community Care info@ablecommunitycare.com

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