Many disabled people in Blackpool could be left "marooned" in care homes if plans to change the Disability Living Allowance go ahead, an MP claims. The £49.85 a week mobility part of the allowance for working-age people in care, which goes towards trips out, will be cut in the Welfare Reform Bill.
Social care is facing a funding gap of more than £1bn by 2014 in England - a situation which would have consequences for the NHS, a leading think-tank says. The King's Fund analysis predicted councils would struggle to protect home help and care home places as they come to terms with funding cuts.
To-day, the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference passed an amended motion on the proposed removal of the mobility component of Disability Living Allowance for those who live in residential care homes or children who have to go to residential schools. Here is the text of the motion:-
Government figures show about 450,000 disabled people will see their incomes cut under one of the changes planned to housing benefit. Campaigners fear thousands will be forced from their homes.
Liberal Democrat Children and Families Minister, Sarah Teather, today published a Green Paper on Special Educational Needs and Disabilities which proposes a new single assessment process to join up health, social care and education services.
Support for young people in England with special educational needs faces a major overhaul. The government wants to replace the current complex system of statements of need with a simpler, more family-friendly assessment. Parents of special needs children are also being promised control over support budgets by 2014.