"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate to the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services…"
Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948, Article 25(1)

Social Care – a brief overview

1.      The idea that asylum-seekers and other migrants who have health or social care needs should be treated very differently from any other vulnerable UK resident is a relatively new one. Restrictions on community care services were only introduced in 2002, followed more recently by the restrictions on NHS secondary treatment in 2004.
 
2.     When access to mainstream benefits and housing was withdrawn from in-country asylum-seekers in 2006, destitute adults were rescued with community care provision (R v Hammersmith and Fulham LBC ex parte M), and families got help under the Children Act. Many of the single adults, who were supported under Section 21 of the National Assistance Act were able-bodied, with no particular care needs.

3.     That led to the Immigration and Asylum Act in 1999, excluding asylum-seekers from access to mainstream housing and benefits, including disability benefits, replacing it with the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) provision of asylum support. The new scheme worked by excluding destitute asylum-seekers from assistance under section 21 of the National Assistance Act 1948. But the exclusion only applies to asylum-seekers if their need for care and attention has arisen solely because [they] are destitute, or because of the effects of destitution.

4.     It was not until 2002 (Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, Schedule 3) that certain migrants with care needs were excluded from community care, housing and Children Act services, except where provision was needed to avoid a breach of their human rights. Those exclusions are:

a)    Refugees from other EEA countries
b)    EEA citizens
c)    Failed asylum-seekers with removal directions
d)    A person who is unlawfully in the UK
e)    A failed asylum-seeker with a child who fails to leave the UK voluntarily (Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc Act , Section 9)

5.     We are still in limbo on Section 9, awaiting a government announcement about whether it will abolish or replace the scheme. No more families have had their support withdrawn under it since the pilot ended at the start of the year. Some of the 113 families affected by the pilot remain without support.

Full report by Sue Willman