Ramsdens have been supporting Headway’s 2018 Action for Brain Injury Week campaign entitled You, me and brain injury this week. We have also taken part in Hats for Headway today, raising awareness and funds for Headway.
As we have discussed in our recent blogs, suffering from a brain injury can have devastating effects on the individuals’ life together with their families. Headway’s campaign has highlighted success stories on how important support and awareness is. It is also Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Day today where Spinal Injury Association, Aspire, Back Up, Spinal Research, and Spinal Injuries Scotland all come together to raise the profile of spinal injury and the devastation this can have on the injured and the people around them.
It is reported that there are around 50,000 people in the UK and Ireland suffering with spinal cord injury. The majority of these injuries are sustained as a result of road traffic accidents, falls at work or in other environments or sporting injury. An injury to the spinal cord can be extremely complex and results in the inability of communication up and down the cord beyond the point of injury. This can affect everyday living and the basic functions that we all take for granted such as our senses, grip, and breathing.
This type of injury can affect everyday living and the basic functions that we all take for granted such as our senses, grip, and breathing. People often find that simple tasks like being able to count money or pay bills can be incredibly difficult or that they are no longer able to look after themselves and make decisions about where they want to live or any medical treatment that they need.
Here at Ramsdens our specialist teams can help.
Our Court of Protection team can help in a practical way. You may have heard of LPA’s (Lasting Powers of Attorneys) in the media as being a good idea for the elderly. These documents give your attorneys, being trusted family, friends or a solicitor, the power to make decisions on your behalf in relation to your money and property or in relation to your health and care when you no longer want to or are able to do so yourself. However, such documents do not just apply to the elderly and can be useful to anyone with an injury. Having an LPA, can mean that you can focus on rehabilitation or dealing with your day to day tasks without worrying about the more difficult aspects of dealing with bills etc.
In the event that you or a family member have a more severe injury that means you lack capacity to make decisions about your finances or health, a deputyship order can be made. This is a court order issued by the Court of Protection which means that someone (again family, friend or solicitor) has requested to act and be appointed to look after your affairs in a similar fashion to an attorney. The difference here is that with an LPA, the person with the brain injury is currently able to make the decision as to who to appoint to look after them, whereas a deputyship order is made when they are unfortunately no longer able to make that decision.
With both options, the person appointed must act in your best interest and account for decisions made on your behalf to ensure that they are not misusing their role.
Our Personal Injury and Clinical Negligence team work extremely closely with trusted rehabilitation providers to help those suffering to rebuild their lives and independence which in turn helps those family members, carers and friends to appreciate the support required for the individual to live life as independently as possible.
To speak to members of our Court of Protection, Personal Injury and/or Clinical Negligence team please do not hesitate to contact us on 01484 821 500 or email info@ramsdens.co.uk.