Lib Dem Health Spokesperson Wayne Hoban has called for urgent action to be taken to reduce waiting times for council tenants to be rehoused on medical grounds in the London Borough of Haringey.

The call comes following a response to a council question from Cllr Hoban where the Executive Member for Housing confirmed that over 500 council tenants currently applying for rehousing on medical grounds are being kept in a queue awaiting processing.

It currently takes over 8 weeks for Haringey Council to process each medical letter. This is largely due to the fact that, despite receiving an average of 35-40 medical letters for processing each day, only two members of staff are assigned to process them.

Cllr Hoban is deeply concerned at the length of a process designed to determine whether someone’s health is affected by the conditions they are living in. He says that many applicants may have suffered the consequences of anti-social behaviour, which can severely affect their health and prolonging the process simply compounds the problem.

Lib Dem Deputy Leader Cllr Hoban comments:

“It is clearly unacceptable that council tenants who may need to be urgently rehoused on medical grounds have to wait for over two months for a decision.

“Haringey Council must ensure that sufficient resources are made available to deal with this urgent problem and I will be pressing them to do so.”