As sent to Dorset Echo
As a carer for an aged parent you will be dealing with many people, doctors, nurses, care homes or agencies and maybe social services. This may be frustrating at times, but generally you will be talking to human beings who mostly make a genuine attempt to understand your needs. You may need to deal with your parent’s finances and that’s a different story. Banks are not human and bank staff are not allowed to use any initiative to help you. You may have a Lasting Power of Attorney – Property and Finance. You may have taken it into the bank and got them to record it and your signature, but using your power is a whole different story. The bank probably does have a detailed internal written procedure for dealing with powers of attorney, but most bank staff will not have seen it or know where to find it. Any brochure you may find in a branch or online will be far too general to help you get what you need.
You may have been registered for telephone banking, but you will probably not have been told how to actually get through to someone who can help you. Your parent may well wish to sign the cheques for as long as he or she is able, but of course may suddenly become unable to do so. At that point it is likely to take weeks before you are able to sign for them. When you ask for permission to sign the cheques you are likely to be given the wrong advice initially and it could take months to sort things out.
At such times it is no use going to a government agency for help. In response to a report by a parliamentary enquiry into the working of the Mental Capacity Act, which reported this kind of problem, the government said,
“As the Select Committee made clear, it is difficult to enforce compliance on the part of public bodies and private companies when there are no specific sanctions. It should also be remembered that financial institutions have no legal duty to open or run a bank account for any person.”
So what can you as a carer do about this? The main thing to do is to think ahead as to what your needs might be in say a year’s time and ask detailed questions up front as to how they can be met. You must ensure that any advice you receive is recorded in writing so that they cannot go back on their word. You need to be very persistent and assertive.
Things would be so much easier both for attorneys and for bank staff if detailed guidance were published on the bank’s website, or could be picked up in branches.
If local bank branches here in Weymouth claim not to recognise this situation then may I suggest that they use your pages to explain where such detailed guidance can be found.
David Smith, Weymouth
