Posts Tagged ‘health’
Friday, August 13th, 2010
Received from PRTC …
We regret that benefits will increase in line with Consumer Price Index rather than Retail Price Index as a measure of inflation. The different could mean about £130p/a to each carer by 2015. Carers and disabled people need more not less financial support.
Furthermore, we would like to see greater support to help carers and disabled people work, rather than simply being subject to more testing about their capability which can often be wrongly assessed causing undue stress.
We understand the financial pressures on Government, but public funding cuts must not be aimed at carers and families, who are emblematic of the Big Society they hope to foster. Research shows that cutting support for carers will very quickly cost more money than is saved. Carers who do not receive support are more likely to suffer physical and mental breakdowns. When this happens, the original patient requires emergency hospital admission or expensive residential care and the carer becomes a patient as well – meaning costs spiral.
Carole Cochrane
Chief Executive Officer
Tags: carers, carers uk, disability, disability alliance, disability living allowance, dla, health, princess royal trust for carers, social care
Posted in budget, carers, disability living allowance, disabled | 1 Comment »
Monday, August 9th, 2010
We are happy to add our support to your campaign – alongside the following statement from the National Pensioners Convention’s General Secretary, Dot Gibson:
The NPC has worked with Carer Watch over the past year to defend the rights of disabled people and their carers. The support provided by the Disability Living Allowance is essential to those who need extra help to maintain their independence and mobility in later life, and cutting it will be an act of pure cruelty that will have a devastating impact on some of the most vulnerable members of our society. The government must be made to think again.
All the best
Neil Duncan-Jordan
NPC
Tags: carers, carers uk, disability, disability alliance, disability living allowance, dla, health, Inclusion London, national pensioners convention, social care
Posted in budget, carers, disability living allowance, disabled | Comments Off
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010
Throughout its history Soundings journal has been at the forefront of rethinking welfare policy. In the last decade Britain has been subjected to levels of reform that have undermined the old welfare consensus established in the years following the second world war. The issue of conditionality has shifted from being a reciprocal agreement to becoming a punitive method of controlling and monitoring claimants. The collapse in the value of benefits contributes to the fear and anxiety of being made redundant or becoming sick or disabled. The old welfare safety net is in tatters. The Disability Living Allowance is one of the last remaining universal benefits paid to those who are working and those who are not working and based on the principle of need. We know that the Labour Movement will need to create a new welfare system for the future, one that is not run for profit by business, which keeps people out of poverty and which while requiring a fair reciprocity does not punish or impose workfare. This is a major undertaking but it will be built on benefits like the DLA and for this reason we need to defend it as a priority.
Jonathan Rutherford
editor Soundings
Tags: aspergers, autism, carers, carers uk, disability, disability living allowance, dla, health, Inclusion London, NHSCA, princess royal trust for carers, RADAR, rethink, social care, soundings journal, the national autistic society
Posted in budget, carers, disability living allowance, disabled | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
At Carers UK, we share Carer Watch’s concern about government plans for DLA and the knock on effect for those people claiming Carer’s Allowance. DLA is a disability benefit designed to help people with the additional costs associated with their disability. The introduction of medical assessments for Disability Living Allowance will cause extreme concern and anxiety amongst people caring, unpaid, for disabled relatives. Carers UK are already receiving daily phone calls and emails from families caring at the sharp end, often 24/7 and at the end of their tether, who are now scared for their financial future.
Carers own income could well be hit, as Carer’s Allowance and other benefits are based on the disabled person receiving Disability Living Allowance at a certain level. People’s experiences of medical tests for Employment and Support Allowance and Incapacity Benefit have not been positive, and poor medical assessment could spell financial disaster for carers and their families.
Making savings to the welfare bill in this way is deeply unfair – hitting the most vulnerable in our society particularly hard, people who are already struggling to make ends meet. Caring is something we will all have to do at some point in our lives and Carers UK will continue to campaign for the contribution that carers make to families and society to be fully recognised and to ensure that carers get the practical, financial and emotional support they need.
Tags: carers, carers uk, disability, disability alliance, disability living allowance, dla, health, social care
Posted in budget, carers, disability living allowance, disabled | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
As a charity supporting individuals, and their families, who are affected by Asperger syndrome; we are very concerned that changes in the benefits system will add yet more confusion and anxiety for vulnerable people.
Most adults with Asperger syndrome would like to have a job, but frequently find it difficult to gain and maintain employment. Trying to keep up with the constant changes in how to apply for support and benefits can only lead to more people in crisis and more costs for statutory services.
Jan Cole, Carers and Parents Support – Asperger East Anglia
Tags: aspergers, carers, carers uk, disability, disability alliance, disability living allowance, dla, health, social care
Posted in aspergers, autism, budget, carers, disability living allowance, disabled | Comments Off
Monday, July 26th, 2010
Dear Carer Watch,
Thanks for your information. We too are very opposed to the government’s proposals around DLA and other benefits. You can see our approach on our website .
We are happy to support work on this area.
Best wishes,
Anne Kane, Policy Manager
Inclusion London have their analysis of How the Budget will damage the lives of Deaf and Disabled Londoners
Tags: carers uk, disability, disability alliance, disability living allowance, dla, health, Inclusion London, RADAR, rethink, social care, the national autistic society
Posted in budget, carers, disability living allowance, disabled | 2 Comments »
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
Benefits and Work entirely opposes the proposed changes to DLA and the
spurious basis on which they are being made. We strongly support CarerWatch in their aim of trying to find out from disability charities what they intend to do about the cuts. We also hope that charities will boycott any ‘consultation’ about how to implement the changes, because we know that their input will be largely ignored but the fact that they were consulted will be used to dismiss criticism. It happened with ESA and it will happen again with DLA unless the charities have the courage to put their members interests first – even if it makes them unpopular with the coalition.
Steve Donnison
Benefitsandwork
Tags: carers, carers uk, disability, disability alliance, disability living allowance, dla, health, social care
Posted in budget, carers, disability living allowance, disabled | Comments Off
Sunday, July 18th, 2010
To Carer Watch – Statement against the Cuts.
A local person here in Norfolk has a disabled relative who has just lost his DLA and Tax Credits. Despite his disabilities, he always pushed himself to work 16 hours a week. Yet the award of Tax Credits to reflect his relative disadvantage in the labour market has now been withdrawn. The DLA supposed to compensate him for the extra living costs associated with his disablility has been stripped away. We hope he will appeal.
As a matter of public policy, the punitive treatment of the disabled and its devastating impact on carers is an issue we need to confront the Conservative Liberal Coalition with head-on.
Alexandra Kemp
Chief Executive
West Norfolk Women and Carers’ Pensions Network
Tags: carers, carers uk, disability, disability alliance, disability living allowance, dla, health, princess royal trust for carers, social care
Posted in budget, carers, disability living allowance, disabled | 1 Comment »
Friday, July 16th, 2010
Whilst Carer Watch have been contacting various groups/organisations regarding this campaign, one of our members decided to contact NHS Consultants Association. Please see below the exchange she had with them.
We thank Rose for her time and effort in this, and we also thank Peter Fisher for his response and support on behalf of NHSCA.
Quote from Peter and NHSCA
“In a civilised society, its most vulnerable members should be the last to be targetted for spending reductions. It is perverse to be claiming to ring fence the NHS budget whilst reducing support for disabled people in a manner which will have damaging effects on their health and knock on costs for the
NHS”
(more…)
Tags: carers, carers uk, disability living allowance, dla, health, NHSCA, princess royal trust for carers, RADAR, social care
Posted in budget, carers, disability living allowance, disabled | 2 Comments »
Friday, July 16th, 2010
The Disability Living Allowance (DLA) Battleground
I want to use my own account of living with cerebral palsy to question the logic behind the Government’s thinking around the issue of reforming the benefit system. During his recent Emergency Budget, George Osbourne announced changes to the way Disability Living Allowance (DLA) would be administered. It was stated that this wasn’t simply a ‘cutting exercise’ but part of a raft of measures to assist disabled people ‘into the labour market’.
If this is to be taken at face value then why has a treasury document since confirmed that all existing DLA claimants of working age to will be required to undergo a medical using the new system between 2013 and 2016, leading to savings of over a billion pounds a year by reducing DLA claimant numbers? This amounts to 1 in 5 DLA claims losing their benefits, yet the DWP’s own figures show that the level of fraud stands at less than 0.5% This would suggest the new system will alter the goalposts and thereby making it into a ‘cutting exercise’.
(more…)
Tags: bob williams-findlay, carers, disability, disability living allowance, dla, health
Posted in budget, carers, disability living allowance, disabled | 2 Comments »
