Tell the UK government they’re failing us

This Government needs to loook after all of the UK and not just the 1-5% of the UK. In the, so called, ‘Mini Budget’ of Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng MP, this top echelon of the UK was well catered for and even though the removal of the 45% Tax Rate has been over-turned, the budget is still much more for them than the rest of the UK. They will not be any worse off by the high inflation that has been caused, but the rest of the UK will be.

An area of the UK which will be most worse off are those on welfare benefits, many of whom have no opportunities to help themselves to be better off and benefits are the only means that can help to achieve this to a small extent.

To not increase benefits in line with inflation, will cause them even greater hardships than they already have, so it is essential that the all the benefits are are increased, at least, in line with inflation, so please support this petition for you will never know when you yourselves may have to rely on benefits.

Your signature is most certainly required, so please do sign.

 

 

Source: Tell the UK government they’re failing us

Make lying in the House of Commons a criminal offence – Petitions

The Government should introduce legislation to make lying in the House of Commons a criminal offence. This would mean that all MPs, including Ministers, would face a serious penalty for knowingly making false statements in the House of Commons, as is the case in a court of law.

Source: Make lying in the House of Commons a criminal offence – Petitions

National Adult Social Care Strategic Partners: our response to the 2021 Queen’s Speech

I agree with all you say and I am supporting the petition, Solve the crisis in Social Care,
https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/solve-the-crisis-in-social-care

Please could you support it also, and then share.

More information can been here, https://1drv.ms/w/s!Aq2MsYduiazgoEy6ROxeV0abd2mT?e=PICUib

It is essential that the social care funding is sorted for that is a main area, but also are

Care workers pay and conditions
quality of care
quantity of care
social care not being free at point of delivery, as is health
And others

A vision for the future of social care

I so agree, which is why I support the petition, Solve the crisis in Social Care, https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/solve-the-crisis-in-social-care

Further information can be found at https://1drv.ms/w/s!Aq2MsYduiazgo1VP3BeD4Qrpt0Xm?e=hHwlFU

Joint statement on the future funding of adult social care

Yet another saying the Government needs to, urgently, provide the promised review of Social Care including the substantial funding required to ensure Social Care can continue.

I have been saying this for some time and support the Petition, Solve the crisis in Social Care, https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/solve-the-crisis-in-social-care

In my promotions of the petition I have been saying the following

‘The issues raised in the petition were mentioned on Boxing Day in a Sky News report, Social Care – The Other Health Crisis., https://news.sky.com/video/social-care-the-other-health-crisis-12172633, regarding an investigation they have done into the crisis in social care.

They highlighted many of these issues and called on the Government to abide by the promise made by Boris Johnson in 2019 in his election winning speech outside 10 Downing Street, one promise that is still outstanding.

Other perspectives were mentioned in the Community Care article, ADASS urges emergency workforce plan as NHS pressures and staff gaps risk ‘overwhelming social care’,

ADASS urges emergency workforce plan as NHS pressures and staff gaps risk ‘overwhelming social care’

Please support the petition by signing and sharing and in doing so give your support to Social Care being given the ability to survive.

For without Social Care many in need of care could have serious unmet needs, which could lead to their deaths, perhaps even more than attributed to COVID-19.

Please sign and share the petition to show your support for Social Care

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/solve-the-crisis-in-social-care

With no certainty over retail’s future, are John Lewis staff now being undersold? | Retail industry | The Guardian

Is this the final ending of the High Street as we have known it.

Store after store with many retailers has been ongoing for many years,  https://www.gov.uk/introduction-to-business-rates but COVID appears to have increased the process.

Many customers, myself included are now only shopping on the internet.

This coupled with the closing of stores is decimating many high street and this is not good, especially those who have no wish to  do not wish to use the internet or have no opportunities to do so.

But it is not just customers who are affected, for Local Authorities, (LAs), rely on businesses for some of their income through Business Rates. This is coupled with the Government Grants, Council Tax, etc. The LAs need income to pay for the various council services we all experience. With less income and this income from Government Grants has been reducing for the past 11 years through the Governments Austerity Cuts. Even though this Government has stated they will not be continuing the austerity cuts, they are not increasing the Grants to offset all the reductions. Then we have the costs related to COVID and Yes, some of this has been reimbursed by the Government. but not all.

Many of the Council services are essential and even though some people think not Social Care is one.

Social Care is a vital service for those who are in need of care and their families, who have and are still going all they can to provide much of the care needed. Currently family carers are providing over £130 billion in Social Care, so without family carers the costs to LAs would be very much more. But family carers are not able to provide more and without Council Social Care input their vulnerable relatives will suffer in many areas of live we all take for granted, the right to live a reasonable life.

The promised White Paper on Social Care, which has been promised for many years, has still not been published, it was urgently required at least 10 years ago, so now the situation in social care is exceedingly worrying. My own worry is, will Social Care be able to last until the Government, not only, publishes the White Paper, but enacts the measures, urgently required.

Without these measures deaths will occur and maybe in excess of those related to COVID-19.

So please support the petition, Solve the crisis in Social Care, https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/solve-the-crisis-in-social-care

Source: With no certainty over retail’s future, are John Lewis staff now being undersold? | Retail industry | The Guardian

Tara Bostock’s Family Call For Research Into LD Covid Death Rates

I agree wholeheartedly that persons with Learning Disabilities and also Autism should have been and now need to be given an increased priority to receive the COVID-19 vaccines.

In fact there is a petition, Prioritise vaccinations for people with a learning disability.

Persons with Down’s Syndrome have now been included in Priority 4, whereas some others with Learning Disabilities are now in Priority 6, but not all and therefore they will be vaccinated according to their age.

A further consideration is for persons with Learning Disabilities who have an aversion to needles and therefore can’t have the vaccine by injection. But currently there is no alternative, however, I do believe that 2 forms of Nasal Spray are now being tested within the UK.

Since May 2015 there has been the Learning Disabilities Mortality Review (LeDeR) programme. This programme is showing that persons with learning disabilities, (LD) mortality is 20% less than persons who do not have learning disabilities. All deaths of persons with LD are, currently, referred to the LeDeR programme and research is ongoing, so why did the Government take this into account, when forming the priority groups and not wait until the situation was specifically mentioned to them, as NHS England are aware of the programme as it is funded by them.

I do wonder, if the lack of attention to persons with LD is not by accident by this and previous Governments and that there is an underlying motive.

Same Difference

The family of a woman with Down’s syndrome who died after contracting Covid-19 are calling for more research into how the virus affects people with disabilities.

Tara Bostock, 51, from Barlestone in Leicestershire, died despite having self-isolated, her family said.

Research has found people with learning disabilities are more likely to die from Covid.

Ms Bostock’s family described the death rate as “astonishing”.

‘Appalling loss’

Ms Bostock – described by her family as “a joy to be around” – lived with her sister and was waiting for a vaccine before she died on 21 January.

Her relatives said she was “the most beautiful, loving person”.

Niece Rebecca Barnes said people with learning disabilities needed to be vaccinated faster.

“I completely understand the elderly are very vulnerable,” she said.

“They need to be looked after, but there are other people that need looking after as well.

“The figures are astonishing [concerning]…

View original post 97 more words

Cerrie Burnell: ‘Disabled People Have Been Shut Away During The Pandemic’

Starting from around the Victorian era Society’s attitudes towards persons with disabilities changed for before then, it was general that they would live with their families in their local communities. This is referenced in the book ‘Those they called IDIOTS by Simon Jarrett’, http://www.bbk.ac.uk/events/remote_event_view?id=18449, which traces the disabled mind from 1700 to the present day.

As you know we are in the COVID-19 pandemic and even though there are now vaccines which will help to combat the effects of COVID-19, it is currently unsure if the vaccines will stop you contracting COVID-19 and even then passing it on, for it is still early days and this still needs to be researched.

So, this pandemic will be with us for some considerable time, but hopefully to a lessor effect, that is unless a mutant strain or strains render the vaccines less effective. It will be possible to tweak the vaccines to overcome the mutant strains, but this will take some time.

It maybe that the vaccines are here to stay and to fully combat the mutant strains the vaccines will need to be taken on a regular basis, such as is the case for the flu vaccine.

The pandemic is, as stated in the article, having a dramatic effect on the learning disability community as they are more susceptible to contracting COVID-19 and more likely to suffer more serious consequences than some persons without disabilities, causing an increased death rates for persons with disabilities. This is in addition to the already poor death rates for persons with learning disabilities as highlighted in the LeDeR programme conducted by the University of Bristol, http://www.bristol.ac.uk/sps/leder/about/.

There are many aspects on how the lives of persons with Learning Disabilities are being effected in addition to those mentioned in this article, which will include Welfare benefits and the crisis in Social Care.

In both these instances the Current and previous Government’s attitudes to persons with disabilities and the state of Government funding needs to be taken into account.

For the latter there is the petition, Solve the crisis in Social Care, https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/solve-the-crisis-in-social-care, in which your support would be appreciated.

Same Difference

“As a disabled person you have to be so political every day,” says Cerrie Burnell, “just in how you go about your life; being joyful has to be a choice because you are told at the beginning that you’re not really welcome here or there is something wrong with you.”

Burnell, a former presenter on the children’s channel CBeebies was born without the lower part of her right arm. The subject of prejudice by some parents when she got the CBeebies job, Burnell – also an actor and writer – explores the origins of negative attitudes towards disability in a BBC Two documentary on Tuesday, Silenced: The Hidden Story of Disabled Britain.

Part of a BBC season marking the 25th anniversary of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), the programme asks why disabled people have been ostracised from society, charts the battle for rights and concludes that, despite the freedoms…

View original post 932 more words

Silenced: The Hidden Story of Disabled Britain Review – Have Attitudes Changed?

Attitudes have always been changing, and will always do so.

For in the 18th century persons with learning disabilities (LD) or now known as intellectual disabilities, but with different labelling, were more inclined to be looked after by their families and were a part of the community.

But on approaching the 19th century this form of accepting changed and persons with LD were more than likely to be placed in institutions where they were out of sight of Society and, of course, their families.

But in the mid-Twentieth century there institutions were, quite rightly, starting to be closed and persons with LD were again within the community and to a large extent their families under the heading of Community Care. But there was one major drawback, as Community Care was never, anywhere near sufficiently funded by Governments, which is still the case for Social Care today.

In 1948 the NHS was created and welfare benefits from 1906 -1914. However, the current and last few Conservative Governments have eroded some of the financial state of these benefits with a view to enhance employment.

But these Governments failed to see, either by design or ignorance that not all on benefits can gain employment and for some of those that do, their financial gain in doing so was minimal, as they were on the statutory minimum wage which in many instances was just above subsistence level and this is the case, even today.

For many employment opportunities on a salary above subsistence to be replaced by opportunities on only the minimum wage. this is in no way inclusion and this is for the general workforce.

But within this there are many persons with disabilities, who need, due to their disabilities more income to cover the additional costs relating to their disabilities.

Yes.as said before, there are welfare benefits, but these are again insufficient and Tory governments have put in place barriers which make it much more difficult to obtain these benefits.

This coupled with the state of Social Care in the twenty-first century are making lives even more difficult for persons with disabilities.

Much needs to be done by this Government to engage change, but have they the will to do this? I fear not.

For this and many other reasons I ask you to support the petition, Solve the crisis in Social Care, https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/solve-the-crisis-in-social-care

Same Difference

Children’s TV presenters are often at the forefront of social change. Perhaps this is because – as one of the people interviewed in Silenced: The Hidden Story of Disabled Britain (BBC Two) remarked – “children are much better at inclusion” than their angry-letter-writing, Ofcom-complaint-making parents.

Ben Cajee, of the current CBeebies cohort, won praise for his age-appropriate discussion of racism in October, but in 2009 it was his predecessor Cerrie Burnell who inadvertently became an activist. Burnell was born with a right arm that ends just below the elbow. She hadn’t set out to champion the rights of disabled people – all she wanted was to introduce another episode of Balamory – but when parents complained that her appearance was “scaring children”, she did just that.

Where do such prejudices against disabled people come from? This documentary saw Burnell explore that question, finding the beginnings of an answer in…

View original post 629 more words

95% of decisions in favour of parents, but nobody wins at the SEND Tribunal – Special Needs Jungle

Unfortunately Local Authorities (LAs) are not only not working with the ‘best interests’ of children under ‘SEND’ or ‘SENDIST’, as they also are not in many assessments of Need for both children and adults.

Are they doing this deliberately, I feel they are, but not because they are mean and wish to do do, although some may, no it is because LAs have been left desperately short of funding, due to 10 years of austerity cuts and the the additional costs of COVID-19.

In fact, social care has never been sufficiently funded and this is purely down to successive Government in depriving LAs of sufficient funding, not only for social care, but many other essential services.

Also when Governments put additional responsibilities on LAs, the Government fail to provide the additional funding to allow the LAs to successfully manage these additional responsibilities.

To a large extent this is also the care with health care (NHS), but no where to the same degree.

Is it that these Governments do not understand LAs and especially Social Care, well to some extent this can be so, but they also see LAs as a means to save on funding, as they do not fully understand the needs.

This has been recently be shown in the Governments handling of PPE during this COVID-19 pandemic. for they could not see the need to have a large stock of PPE, but would assume that they just need supplies to cover the usual demand, and felt if that demand increase it would be easy to obtain additional supplies, which COVID-19 has proved is a false premise.

But like LAs in their dealings with SEND and SENDIST, they never learn and only look to make saving, when, effectively saving are not there to be made, it is pure incompetence.

So when, it is clear needs are not being covered or they spend money they can ill afford to in defence of indefensible legal cases, this leads LAs to be even more short of funding, rather than cut their losses and pay or provide what they should have done initially.

This, in turn, creates an impossible situation for the persons in need and their families, who are already in very stressful situations and they should not be subjected to immense further stress from LAs and technically Governments.

The leaders of LAs in challenging the Tribunal’s to be changed is far from the answer, but LAs see this has the easiest option.

For the LAs are completely ‘at fault’ and so are the Government, but to challenge the Government for more substantial is much more difficult.

In addition the need to have Social Care, which is effectively as important as health care and could be more so, is far from recognised by Government and unfortunately a sizeable portion of the UK population. For, if you are not in need of Social care, many will not see its importance, that is, until they require it for themselves or for a loved family member.

Most people use health care. but not the same proportion use social care, so social care is not recognise as a very essential service, when it really is.

This Government needs to do, urgently, to reverse the non-actions of itself and many previous Governments and immediately provide all the funding for LAs to provide all that is required within Social Care, which will include SEND and SENDIST.

For this reason and many more, I created the petition, Solve the crisis in Social Care,

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/solve-the-crisis-in-social-care.

Please show your support for children and adults in need of social care, by signing the petition and then sharing.

 

Source: 95% of decisions in favour of parents, but nobody wins at the SEND Tribunal – Special Needs Jungle