Working together

Where clients have a Deputy to manage their affairs it is, of course, for the Deputy to pull these pieces of the jigsaw together. All too often, however, those that have capacity are left to manage those aspects of their life, post-settlement, with very little or no previous experience in doing so.

Take, for example, a Case Manager’s objectives to provide exemplary care that it is believed will reduce the need for further care in the long term. Financial Advisers are, as you would expect, unqualified to assess the appropriateness or likely outcome of a given care plan.

In a recent case, a care plan was proposed that would see the claimant’s fund exhaust within twelve years in the hope that little or no support would be required after six years, but in doing so half of the damages would be spent and unavailable to meet other needs.

Of course, if there is a hope that high care input would produce results, there is no reason not to try it. However, in this particular case, after two years the care need had increased and not decreased as had been expected.

A frank and open discussion between the Financial Adviser and the Case Manager was required to set out that effectively the client was faced with a difficult choice – meet all the care need for some of the time, or meet some of the care need for all of the time.

The former leaves the client with no funds to meet either known or future unknown needs; the latter ensures that the client will always retain some element of much needed support.

There is clearly no right or wrong balance between these two options that is easily identifiable but without these various professionals liaising openly it is almost certain that the correct balance will not be struck.