Welfare Reform on the Web (September 2009): Services for the disabled - UK

Disabled people and self-directed support schemes: reconceptualising work and welfare in the 21st century

S. Prideaux and others

Disability and Society, vol. 24, 2009, p. 557-569

This article critically explores and contextualises recent moves towards self-directed support services for disabled people in the UK. It is argued that such schemes fundamentally alter the relationship between disabled people and those who support them. Managing a state-funded, user-directed support package is likened to running a small business. Disabled people who employ personal assistants under self-operated support schemes are employers in the same sense as any other. As such they are operating as small businesses and it is incorrect to classify them as 'benefit recipients'.

Not aiming high enough

A. Taylor

Community Care, Aug. 13th 2009, p. 18-19

The child health strategy, published in February 2009, confirmed that £340m of funding had been added to primary care trusts' budgets to provide short breaks, community equipment, wheelchairs and palliative care for disabled children as part of the Aiming High initiative from 2008-11. Local authorities were given the same amount over the same period to encourage collaboration. Unfortunately some primary care trusts are proving reluctant to commit to developing services or to providing the level of funding expected.