Norfolk County Council Adult Social Services - Norwich

Tia Radakovich

Absolutely appalling service, grandmother been officially diagnosed with Vascular Dementia and they treated her like an average elderly woman with sound mind who seemed only slightly forgetful. Anyone who knows what Dementia and Alzheimer’s entails there is a lot of complexity that comes with it and gets worse not better, in my grandmothers case she is in denial that there is anything is wrong with her and lies out of pride or fear etc or doesn’t know what she is saying at all in most cases or makes sense. The social worker didn’t take it seriously enough in my eyes and the carers were a waste of time as they literally did NOTHING other then get her up, make her tea, give her meds. Grandmother is delusional she says she is independent but in reality is not.
She has all the typical signs and behaviours of Vascular Dementia and they seemed oblivious to it scoring 0 on her care needs form.
A male carer came in which I thought was off, grandmother has dementia and carers were assigned to wash and dress her and having a male do that with a woman with Dementia isn’t right in itself, i personally don’t think so. Yes in hospital male nurses is different but you catch my drift.
She gets very disoriented most of the time especially when waking up any time of day, suffers hallucinations, paranoia and delusions. Lies, is always agitated or anxious, does other strange things which is very dementia related. I have researched a lot and obviously more knowledgeable then adult social services which is a joke in itself.
Not taking struggling family into consideration at all, offering no support for us to help with the situation we are in.
And funny fact we have security and nanny cameras to prove this.
Absolutely disgraceful.

Sally Benton

Rang Monday requesting help with aids for my mother and got a referral. Received a phone call from a lovely lady called Holly who gave me lots of support and filed a request for some equipment immediately. Hoping to receive it next week and now armed with information to help me as a carer. Thank you ?

Claire Downes

Social services more like let down
Really what service do they offer?
They offer a trauma enforced service where they victim shame and go after families and rip them to shreds offering no apology for the mess that they leave behind.
They have left myself with complex PTSD for the lies that they have spun to fit their own agenda, they are so in-personal and treat relatives like dirt and they claim to protect our loved ones but no they treat them like pound signs and dehumanise them at ever turn!
You try to get in touch with them to discuss care nobody answers but then they find fault with us the carers who have given up so much for our loved ones it's absolutely disgusting!
The whole department needs a shake up and more people need to speak out about the failures and the harassing trauma enforced entitlement of Norfolk social services

Plmokn Ijbuhv

Appalling Adult Services. Spurious safeguarding issues raised against me without me being informed, when I had raised issues re out of control spouse for my protection that are now used to protect them and I'm excluded. Erratic responses to my calls or emails. Spouse put in nursing home from hospital and I can't see them in private until safeguarding issues resolved but noone coming back to me to resolve! Do not ever raise safeguarding issue to protect yourself as it will be used to supposedly safeguard the ill person and exclude carer with no come back. DOLS team are improving communication and spouse social worker lovely when available

Paula Kellingray

We are now into week 5 and still no care in place for my mother. All we want is a reliable and caring provider in place because I am a qualified carer we do not appear to be important, but my life has been put on pause. This is becoming a major problem but social services doesn't seem to care. We now have a very satisfactory result to our needs, just unfortunate that it took so long

ObscurityShade MJ

A good few years ago, my cousin (who works for the Adult Social Services) assisted me in getting a referral. I eventually ended up with a social worker, who will ask question after question after question, not really letting me fully answer before asking the next (despite being aware I'm autistic), and contributing a considerable amount to sensory overload to the point where I get headaches and feel faint while on the phone to her. She has visited a few times, but it's mostly done on the phone as there's nowhere truly private for a meeting where I live with my parents.

The main issue is that despite everything I describe, and despite what she says she will do, nothing ever happens. And I mean NOTHING. If, many months later, she emails me about a catch up, I'll ask what the progress is with what she said she'd investigate, and I get told that I apparently said I didn't want to go ahead with it. Beg pardon? No, if you tell me you're going to investigate options, you darn well do it and get back to me within a set time frame.

I also had a financial assessment done, in which I was told that I WOULD have to contribute to certain services if I wanted them, but it would cost me a maximum of almost £100 a week, which would be most of what I get. I was interested in finding a PA to help me with my self-publishing, but they said I would need to tell them how long I would need a PA for. The trouble is, different PAs work at different rates and have different methods. I need to know what any one PA can do in an hour, and at what cost, before I can say how long for. My social worker has said at least twice now she'd look into finding answers to that. I am still waiting.

I was also looking at trying to get help with learning about how to run my own place (as I was potentially looking at moving out), but I was told I would have to contribute to that as well. Just to get some help with understanding how to do things. I can't get it without a charge because my autism apparently isn't severe enough. Again, beg pardon? All autistic people have different needs no matter where they are on the spectrum, and Norfolk County Council Adult Social Services STILL haven't learned this.

Last time I spoke to my social worker (who talked about meeting up back in the Autumn) I asked about what therapies were available, and I get told "this isn't something we offer". Once more, beg pardon? I told her I was shortly going to be away for a few days, and would get back to her about arranging a time for her to visit once I was back. I did so. She was then going on annual leave. This was right at a time when I received a capability for work questionnaire which I wanted support with. I replied to her email in which she said she'd look at getting someone to help, but she didn't reply until after she returned, to which I told her I'd already had to haphazardly do it myself because there was a deadline. I will also mention that in the summer of 2022, I received a similar form for PIP (also at a time when she was going on annual leave), so I contacted the office and asked for assistance with the form there. I was told someone would get back to me to arrange an appointment. Nearly 2 weeks later I'd heard nothing and had a deadline of the following week to get the form in. So I ended up stressing with that form by myself as well.

I have been registered with the Adult Social Services since before the pandemic, and NOTHING has happened. I have received NO support from them whatsoever, and for a good while now the social worker has been on reduced working hours, so it's not so easy to get in touch with her. I will be contacting them to request a change of social worker to see if that makes any difference, but I don't expect it to. What an absolutely useless "service".

Kristy Everly

After a referral from the adult mental health services, I was finally seen many months later and now get 2 hours support a week. - the only help I have from anyone at all.

When assessed a couple of months later, I pleaded for more hours support. I was told no but this would be reassessed again. Over a year later, with months of trying to get more support… still nothing.
Different services have tried getting in contact to move things along.. nothing.
I’ve rung up crying on the phone to them about how I constantly feel like I’m drowning and just can’t cope, with the response of them still having no idea when I might be reassessed for further help. Months later… STILL nothing.

As a single mother with ADHD, bipolar depression, borderline personality disorder and mild autism, absolutely everything is a huge struggle for me every single day.
But the biggest issue is how that then affects my daughter.
I can’t do things like cook her proper meals, or keep the house tidy enough so she has a space to play. I can’t be the functional, stable mother that she needs me to be.

JD Fisher managed to visit easily multiple times early on, but I have no contact details and no matter how much I ask or how long I wait, it seems he doesn’t have a spare half an hour during the whole year to acknowledge me.

T

Disgusting what she has done to my family, trickery is a low tactic. Does not have feelings Judge, jury And executioner