Carers or suspeCts? - Manifesto Club

The Expansion of State-defined ‘Vulnerable Adults’ / 14 The Expansion of State-defined ‘Vulnerable Adults’ / 15
This is quite a remarkable expansion, especially when you consider that
health care means receiving ‘treatment, therapy or palliative care of any
description’ (s.59[5], my emphasis), while any provision of assistance
by virtue of age, health or any disability also renders the recipient among
the ranks of the vulnerable (s.59[5]).
As the vast majority of disabled people require some form of assistance,
this legislation effectively equates being disabled with being a
‘vulnerable adult’. With dyslexia now recognised as a form of disability,
and with many higher education students having assistance for just
such a diagnosis, the implication is that they are vulnerable adults also.
However, in a rare moment of insight into the absurdity of such a broad
definition, officials working on the Vetting and Barring Scheme specifically
removed dyslexia-related services from the list of those officially
classed as ‘vulnerable’. 23
It is difficult to get precise figures for how many people are now officially
classed as vulnerable, due to the potential for overlap. Some people will
be in more than one category, for example receiving community care
and health services and/or being in lawful custody and suffering mental
health problems. Nevertheless, it is clear that, at some point in any given
year, a majority of the UK adult population would be labelled as ‘vulnerable’,
and that those who cared for them in a formal capacity would have
to be CRB checked. For example:
– In 2007–08, 1.77 million clients were in receipt of social
care services, 1.53 million (87%) of whom received
community-based services 24
– During a sample week in September 2008, 340,600
people received a total of 4.1 million contact hours of
home care. 25
– 78% of people will see their GP at least once during the
year. GPs also refer 14% of the population to hospital
specialities. 26
– In 2008–09, over 1.2 million people accessed NHS mental
health services. 27
– There were 85,086 detained prisoners as of 30 April 2010. 28
Government guidance relating to the ISA’s Vetting and Barring Scheme
states that the definition of ‘vulnerable adult’ depends on context:
On Tuesdays Mrs B attends a day care centre which
provides social activities for frail old people. During her
time at the day care centre she is receiving a service
which is provided specifically for people with age-related
needs and so is a vulnerable adult. On Wednesdays Mrs
B visits the library. During her time at the library she is
using a service which is targeted at the general public
and so is not a vulnerable adult. 29
As I [Josie Appleton] pointed out in an earlier Manifesto Club document,
such ‘guidance’, rather than offering clarification, merely adds to both
confusion and bemusement, in that:
the staff at the daycare centre would have to be vetted,
because they had ‘access’ to Mrs B in a situation where
she was classified as a vulnerable adult. But the staff at
the library would not, because she would not be defined
as a vulnerable adult in the library. 30
Furthermore, if Mrs B were herself to volunteer at a
local school, then she would be a potential risk and the
pupils would be defined as vulnerable, and she would
have to be vetted. If the school’s sixth formers were to
visit her daycare home as helpers, then they would need
to be vetted and Mrs B would again be defined as
vulnerable. In each case, a helping or caring relationship
is defined as one of potential victim and potential
abuser, with the helper as the risk and the helped as
the potentially abused.
What is worrying is the way a bureaucratic legal procedure overrides
common assessment skills, and the implication that it is those who
purport to care who we should view with most suspicion. In the process
both professionals and service users are undermined; the former viewed