Letter
United Response's letter to the Guardian about social care funding
20th May 2008
In a letter printed in The Guardian last week, chief executive of United Response, Su Sayer OBE, called for the needs of people with learning disabilities not to be overlooked when it comes to debating future funding for social care.
Dear Sirs,
It's high time that we had an honest debate about the future of social care in England and health secretary Alan Johnson is to be congratulated for beginning it by highlighting that current funding is not enough to meet the Government's own objectives of providing first class personal care to those who need it.
So it is unfortunate that all of the media attention yet again focuses only on how this will affect elderly people in the future. Crucial as this issue undoubtedly is, there are other groups - such as those with disabilities - whose quality of life is also endangered, as Alan Johnson himself has made explicit.
We work with people with learning disabilities or mental health needs around the country and are seeing evidence of the pressures on local authorities to cut care packages for people we support. Social care is increasingly directed only to those with the most "critical and substantial" needs and those with "mild and moderate" learning disabilities are excluded, reducing their independence and quality of life.
The tragedy of this is that the Government's own goals for social care are just and rightly ambitious, but are imperilled by a lack of resources. Ivan Lewis, care services minister, rightly calls this one of society's greatest challenges, and argues that "we need to move towards a system which is fairer; where people feel it's fair in terms of what is expected of them and also in terms of what the government can pay and what is affordable." This is an important and urgent debate, which is why it is so important that we hear the voices of everyone affected, including people with disabilities.
Yours faithfully
Su Sayer
Chief Executive, United Response
- Ends -
For more information please contact Sarah Bartlett or Jaime Gill in the United Response Press Office on020 8246 5237/ 020 8246 5122 or emailsarah.bartlett@unitedresponse.org.uk or jaime.gill@unitedresponse.org.uk
Note to editors:
United Response is a national charity that works with people with learning disabilities or mental health needs – including some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
We provide everything from 24 hour care to a few hours of support a week. United Response is community based, working in many localities across England and Wales.
Our mission is to support people with learning disabilities or mental health needs to take control of their lives. We design our care and support around each person and work with them to achieve real inclusion, independence and citizenship for all. We support people across the whole spectrum of learning disability and mental health and have developed a range of specialisms in working with people with the most complex needs, particularly person-centred active support.
We are working towards a society where people with learning disabilities or mental health needs are equal participants and have access to the same rights and opportunities as everyone else.
We have won several awards for our pioneering work and for being a top employer. In 2007 alone, we were highly commended by the Charity Awards for our “Good To Great” approach to providing support, while the Charity Times named us one of the best six charities to work for in the UK. We are experts in the development of accessible communications.
United Response was founded in 1973 by chief executive Su Sayer. We are a top 100 charity, supporting more than 1,500 people throughout the UK at any one time and employing more than 2,000 staff.