help for my friend please

[iceboy]

Hi;

 

I am writin gon behalf of my friend who is very vulnerable and is affectively homeless.

 

He has few serious life threatening conditions such as Behcet Desease, Plysystic Kidney Desease, blood pressure problems, panic attacks, anxiety and few others caused by the behcet desease (mouth and body ulcers are the common ones)

 

He had applied for housing and was provided with a non-shared hostel room with sink and toilet. He had numerous of letters from his doctors, behcet specialist professors and his GP explaining the seriousness of his conditions as well as from his psychiatrist.

 

He was told that he would be put on a emergency list and given a bidding number within 2 weeks. Its been over 3 months and they are asking him to provide all his hospital attendance letters and records from the hospital whenever he was seen and descharged.

 

He went ahead with the hassle and get his papers from the hospitals. However, now they are saying it is not clear and they want more information. His doctors wrote many letters (4 pages long in fact) explaning the seriousness of his health problems and without him having his self accomodated place, he wont ever make any improvement becaus he also has neurologic complications and his mood always changes. And the stress makes his condition even worse.

 

Is it right of the medical team of the council to request such documents from someone so fragile? And is there anything we can do to speed to process or make complain to certain department?

 

I believe this is just unacceptable of them to promise him a bidding number in 2 weeks and not even bothering to keep him updated and then after 3 months, asking him to provide more documents when he already provided everything possible (even by the doctors)

 

If they need extra information, arent they supposed to contact the hospitals themselves and request the information or maybe talk to his doctors?

 

I would be grateful if you could shed some lights on what we can do.

 

Many thanks...

[silverfox1961]

Hi

I think (as you may suspect) the council are deliberately dragging their heels.

 

When I applied for housing on medical needs, the separate forms sent by the council asked for permission to contact the relevant specialists and my GP. This is done for data protection issues.

 

If you are willing to help a bit more, why not get his authorisation for you to act on his behalf then write to the Chief Executive of the council complainig about the way he has been treated. If you mark the envelope 'Private & confidential' these letters are generally not opened by the minions (who would pass it down the line) so the chief exec would see what is happening. ( these things are usually kept from the boss)

 

Mark the letter as Formal Complaint so that at least the complaints process has started. (albeit in a roundabout way)

 

Send the letter by recorded delivery so you can prove the have received it or hand deliver and get a receipt.

 

IF it gets to the end of the complaints procedure with no resolution, you can go to the Housing Ombudsman