What next for the independent living fund?

August 21, 2012   Carers, disability

The closure must be matched by a clear strategy detailing how devolving responsibility to local government would work

 

The ILF has been invaluable for people who have received support from the fund.

In the last days of the parliamentary term, amid the usual flurry of policy documents and statements, almost unnoticed the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) issued a slim consultation document on the future of the independent living fund (ILF).

The writing has been on the wall for the ILF for some time. In June 2010 it announced it was closing to new applications for the rest of the financial year because of insufficient funding. In December of the same year the government confirmed the fund would be permanently closed to new users and funding for existing users would be maintained until the end of the current parliament in 2015.

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Disability activists use social media to put care cuts on the political agenda

August 21, 2012   Carers, disability, internet

Disability activists use social media to put care cuts on the political agenda

Success of Twitter-driven approach put down to ability to engage many campaigners confined to their homes
• Behind the Paralympics, the reality for disabled people in Britain 2012

 

Many disabled people who might otherwise have been unable to be heard have become engaged by campaigns on Twitter.

While there are fears that traditional methods of disability activism are on the wane, a new campaigning spirit is been forged using the social media revolution.

The past 18 months have seen the first flowerings of a new network of activist groups and a shared, inclusive approach that has thrust their engaging campaigning style into the public eye.

Galvanised by the government’s draconian welfare reform agenda, the new activism arguably is helping to renew a disability movement thought by some to have lost its way in recent years.

The staggering Twitter-driven success of the “We Are Spartacus” campaign in January announced the emergence of this new wave. This carefully planned viral campaign steered by a tiny band of activists almost single-handedly put the previously arcane issue of cuts in disability living allowance on the public agenda.

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Revealed: Growing number of elderly dying alone with no relatives

August 21, 2012   Carers, Older care, Wales
  • The number of elderly people dying alone in Wales with no relatives has been highlighted in figures obtained by WalesOnline.
  • By Brendan Hughes, WalesOnline
  • Aug 21 2012

 

The Eleanor Rigby statue in Liverpool

The Eleanor Rigby statue in Liverpool

Older people’s charity Age Cymru warned that as Wales’ population aged, the problem of loneliness was growing, with older men most at risk of isolation.

Figures from Welsh health boards show almost £400,000 was spent over the past four years on holding funerals for patients with no traceable relatives – a problem the Beatles sang about in their 1966 hit Eleanor Rigby.

More than 620 funerals have been paid for by health authorities in Wales between 2008-09 and 2011-12 for patients who have died with no next of kin.

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