Training - No Recourse to Public Funds

posted: 20/05/2011

No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) Training will be provided in Manchester on Tuesday 7th June (10am – 4.30pm) for Local Authority representatives with responsibilities for people with NRPF.

There will be NRPF training specifically for the voluntary sector in London, on 10th June. Details about Voluntary Sector NRPF Training are here

Voluntary sector people are also welcome at the Manchester training but in Manchester the training focuses on social services assessments.

This training is provided by the No Recourse to Public Funds network.

Limited places available

The cost of the training is £125 per person and will take place at Manchester City Council. Limited places are available. To book a place, please complete the booking form and return it to No Recourse to Public Funds at Islington. The training terms and conditions are here.

The Manchester training for local authority workers covers key issues, legislation and social services assessments, for adults, children and families, and includes human rights obligations.
 

• No recourse to public funds - introduction and overview
• Key legislation
• Assessing eligibility for support
• General considerations in assessments of need - adults, children and families, human rights
• Community care and community mental health assessments
• Child in need and human rights assessments
• Good practice in assessing and supporting people with NRPF
• National NRPF Network and the policy context of NRPF
• Case studies

Booking Form

Terms and Conditions

Enquiries and bookings to nrpf@islington.gov.uk

More information on the No Recourse to Public Funds training programme for Local Authorities

More information on the No Recourse to Public Funds training programme for Voluntary Sector

More information on No Recourse to Public Funds from the network

More information on No Recourse to Public Funds from UK Border Agency
 

HIV+ Ugandan Refugee Stays

posted: 11/02/2011

A Ugandan refugee with HIV managed to avoid being deported by refusing to board the plane at Heathrow early this week. Jamal Ali Said – who is HIV positive, claims he's gay and has lived in the UK for fifteen years – was due to be sent back to Uganda on Monday evening.

Jamal says he is at serious risk of persecution - potentially murder. His deportation was arranged barely two weeks after the Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato was brutally murdered, following a media campaign there that urged Ugandans to kill gay people.

Speaking from Campsfield detention centre in Oxfordshire, Jamal said he was "very frightened" because of "how they treat you in Uganda if you have HIV, if you are a gay man."

Deportation, despite Supreme Court ruling

According to Jamal’s lawyer, his application for refugee protection was refused, before the Supreme Court made a landmark decision for gay asylum seekers last year. The Supreme Court ruled that gay asylum seekers should be granted refugee status if being sent home would mean they would be forced to hide their sexuality – having to hide your sexuality breaches your human right to live a private life.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision, Jamal’s solicitor made a fresh application for asylum quoting the Supreme Court, but this was also refused.

Credit where credit's due - we have to thank the first woman Supreme Court Justice, Lady Hale (a former Manchester barrister and university law lecturer), for her wisdom and championing of the human rights of refused gay asylum seekers. In a recent BBC4 documentary on the Supreme Court, she talked about this landmark case, the different life perspectives women bring to the courts as judges, and her persuasion of the other judges to agree with her pioneering judgement. 

You can read about this recent BBC4 programme 'Justice Makers' and watch some clips here.  

Uganda Parliament and death for HIV sex 

Homosexuality is punishable by up to 14 years in prison in Uganda, but a bill before the parliament would impose the death penalty on people with HIV who have sex.

Jamal is being held in Brook House Immigration Centre, near Heathrow, while the UK Border Agency decides whether to attempt to deport him again.
 

Source

GP Guide - Migrants' Health

posted: 26/01/2011

The Migrant Health Guide is a free new online “one stop information shop” for GPs and practice nurses who are working with migrants.

It comes from the Health Protection Agency who have produced it because migrants health needs are often more complex than for other people. HIV is included.

The online guide gives doctors and nurses easy access to the facts, so they can improve their patients’ care and quality of life.
 

Although most migrants to the UK are healthy, TB and HIV and other conditions are more common.

The guide supports diagnosing and managing a range of typical migrant health conditions. Early diagnosis and prompt treatment of HIV and other conditions is important for the health of the individual and to reduce onward transmission.
 

Produced by experts working with primary care practitioners, it comes with the blessings of the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Nursing.

Key Recommendations

• Know your local migrant population and their rights to care
• Teach patients how the NHS works
• Assess new patients using the checklist and their country page
• Vaccinate and immunise as normal
• Watch and test for infectious diseases and conditions typical of their country
• Check and advise on any plans to visit friends and relatives abroad.

The Migrant Health Guide has

• detailed information for each country
• tools for assessing migrant patients – new patients, patients with symptoms, identifying more vulnerable patients
• how to talking about the NHS with migrants – explaining it, migrants rights to treatment, languages and interpreters, cultural awareness
• sections about migrant health conditions (including HIV), infectious diseases, vaccinations

Migrant Health Guide

HIV in Primary Care : The best HIV guide for GPs and primary care is (free download) HIV for non-specialists, by MedFash.

Medical Justice Is Open

posted: 23/12/2010

During Christmas and New Year, (Thursday 23 December to Sunday 2 January, inclusive) Medical Justice staff will provide emergency cover of their phone, fax and email. Medical Justice campaign for decent healthcare for immigration detainees.
 

Contacting Medical Justice  over Christmas and New Year

Referrals

General inquiries
 

Phone      0207 561 7498
Fax           08450 529370

They may not be able to do very much and they ask people to only contact them for help where this cannot wait until they reopen for normal service on 3rd January.

They are very grateful to the doctors and lawyers who have very generously volunteered to support staff and detainees during the holiday period.

Medical Justice

'Inhumane' Asylum Payment Card

posted: 08/11/2010

Four leading refugee organisations criticise the Azure payment card used to pay asylum seekers because it leaves so many living in hunger and deprivation.  The Azure card problems affect people with HIV. The new report, Your inflexible friend: the cost of living without cash, shows the many problems people face when you have no cash and are given no change.
 

The Azure payment card was introduced at the end of 2009 and the card replaced the system of supermarket vouchers for asylum seekers.

The card is topped up weekly (but only with £35 income for a single person) and can be used only in certain supermarkets. You cannot get cash, be given change, and anything over £5 that you do not spend by the end of the week is taken back from you.
 

Cash-less hassle
Without cash,

• over half (56%) could not pay for travel to see their legal advisers, or attend essential health appointments (53%)
• 40% could not buy food for their dietary, religious, or cultural requirements from the allowed supermarkets, and many go hungry as a result
• 39% believed the supermarkets do not give the best value for money, and say markets or charity shops offer a better deal
• 60% had problems with the card not working, including 13 people with children
• 79% reported that the shops had refused the card
• 56% reported anxiety and shame when using the card

The findings confirm the concerns raised by the organisations when the payment card was first introduced in 2009, and that asylum seekers living on this type of support continue to live in deprivation as a result of the card.
 

Jonathan Ellis, Director of Policy and Development at the Refugee Council said: “Our evidence proves the failings of the new Azure card are forcing asylum seekers into hunger and hardship. Their survival relies on a payment system that not only hugely restricts where, when, and what they can shop for, but often does not work at all. People, often with babies and young children, are in many cases just waiting to return to their countries as soon as they can, or cannot return because it is still unsafe. They have no choice but to remain here temporarily, and are not allowed to work to support themselves. It is therefore unacceptable that they are unable to buy items that meet their basic needs, and that they have to face hostility in shops when they use these cards.
 

People need cash not plastic

The government is reviewing the asylum and immigration system and must use this opportunity to end this inhumane system now, and offer asylum seekers cash as an alternative. Though levels of support are still too low – at just £5 a day - a simple cash support system would give people the freedom to spend the money as they wished, while allowing people to live with dignity until they can return home.
 

Your inflexible friend: The cost of living without cash