Disabled people nationwide are taking part in protests across the UK against government spending cuts. The protests are being held in London, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Brighton, Leeds, Nottingham and Manchester. The organisation objects to benefit changes, including cuts in local service cutbacks and DLA disability living allowance.

Government ministers say the welfare system is currently failing people and that the reforms will see benefits go to the right people who need the benefits. Steve Winyard, co-chairman of the Hardest Hit coalition, says the “one single achievement” of disability minister Maria Miller is that she has united the disability movement.

Organisers are calling on government ministers to:

• ensure changes to disability living allowance DLA  – which currentley helps many to live independently – do not make disabled people in need of the benefit worse off
• make sure employment and support allowance, the successor to incapacity benefit, has a fair assessment, does its job and supports disabled people
• stop cuts to services which are essential to disabled people’s quality of life, such as day care, transport and respite care services
• make sure that the welfare system supports people with the additional costs of living with a disability.

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said the government was “absolutely committed” to supporting disabled people and would spend “more than £40bn a year on disabled people and their services”.

An organisation called The Disability Alliance acting as a representative of over 270 disability related charaties is launching legal action to obtain a judicial review of the government’s plans for welfare reform change. The organisation is especially concerned over plans to abolish (DLA) Disability Living Allowance  for  people aged between 16-64 and introduce a new benefit (PIP) Personal Independence Payment. Which is estimated to save £2.17 billion  by 2015. PIP will not provide an equivalent level of support for the people receiving the lower rate of DLA.

Disability Alliance said “We are very concerned that the timetable for the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill may prevent adequate analysis of the potential impact of plans to be undertaken. We do not want to take formal legal action but feel we have no option if our concerns remain unaddressed.”

Disability Alliance is concerned that the following current plans will disproportionately disadvantage disabled people.

• Abolish low rate care DLA support which is received by 652,000 people.
• Reduce projected DLA expenditure by 20% (or £2.17 billion)
• Stop providing DLA mobility support for disabled eople living in residential care homs.

The matter is being managed by Unity Laaw on behalf of Disability Alliance.

Nearly 1 million people in England are not given any help with social care, this is affecting the elderly according to AgeUK 800,000 people are affected. This figure they estimate is likely to top one million people over the next four years. The reasons behind this Age UK say are down to a growing ageing population. Whilst budgets have hardly risen over the years we are now seeing cut backs in care.

It is estimated that just over a million people are getting care although some of these are needing to pay for care services themselves  as they exceed the income cap or have over £23,500 in savings. In 2005 h50% of councils provided support to thoose with moderate needs, sadly  that figure has dropped to below 20%.

The chairty is looking at wats of guaranteeing everyone a certain level of care and support if required. Let’s hope the UK government listen to charities like Age UK when the come to reviewing social care later this year and ensuring that everybody who needs care or support recieves what they need.

I am a wheelchair user, thankfully I have always needed to use a wheelchair that did not happen until I was the ripe old age of 35. Now it came as a shock the first time I seen myself in a wheelchair. Which was in the reflection of the window in the hospital. The reality of disability hit home hard.

It was not until I met and talked to other wheelchair users did I come to accept it, not that I will ever feel totally natural but it is now managable and I thank God that it is today when there is disabled parking, shops are accessibble. It does make me think how did people cope with a disability 30 years ago when there was no such thing as The Disability Discrimination act.

Orginally I used a bulky steel ‘NHS style’ wheelchair with side arms on, I did not even know the arms detached and I used to launch myself out of the chair into the car and hold onto the handbrake or anything I could grab hold of in the car. Very undignified and very dangerous.

Now I use a lightweight wheelchair with detachable sides, so getting into a car is far more dignified using a side ways sliding action and a little help. However the first time I used my lightweight  chair I nearly flipped it over as the force I used was that from my old bulky chair so I needed to reduce the energy I put into wheeling myself around.

Four families of severely disabled people took the case to a High Court sitting in Birmingham. The judges have ruled that Birmingham City Council’s plans to limit social care for disabled people are unlawful. This is one of the first judgments on council limiting care and is classed as a test case is the first in a series of possible legal challenges to councils around the UK mounted by those facing cuts to social care.

Birmingham City Council is planning to reduce care packages to about 4,000 people over the next three years. The authority, a Conservative-Liberal coalition, says it needs to make the cuts to help slash £118m from its budget. It explained that only those whose needs had been assessed as “critical” would qualify for council-funded care.

But the judges ruled that the council business plan was unlawful because it failed to comply with Section 49a of the Disability Discrimination Act. The four people, who cannot be named for legal reasons, include a 65-year-old woman with severe learning difficulties who receives 24-hour care in a home paid for by the council. They also include a 25-year-old man with a rare genetic disorder and severe learning disabilities who receives overnight respite care, also funded by the council.

The case was also brought on behalf of a 30-year-old deaf, autistic man with severe learning disabilities who is prone to self-harm. His specialist day care would also have gone under the plans. The fourth person is a 36-year-old woman with severe learning difficulties whose day care centre will close and who is also set to lose respite care.

The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services study found just 26 out of 148 councils will fund people in moderate  or low needs. This works out at a reduction of 13% by local councils.  The move follows a sharp reduction in goverment funding for local councils, however the government shas claimed recently to have ring fenced an extra £2bn a year by 2014-2015 for social care services.

The survey reveals that 19 local councils have raised the eligibility bar for free adult social care. Thhis means only 22 councils in England out of the 148 which responded will now fund those assessed as having moderate needs, down from 36 in 2010. This criteria includes people who are so ill or disabled that they have trouble taking a bath or preparing a meal for themselves.

Andrew Dilnott, chairman of the commission, said there was no doubt that social care was being squeezed and there was “a growing amount of unmet need”.

He said the current system seemed to “invite variability” and “there was merit in trying to find an assessment system… that seems to give people more of a sense that there was fairness and equality across the UK”.

But he said regardless of the cuts, the system needed to be reformed.

New measures are being brought in to crack down on blue badge parking abuse. These are expected to be announced by ministers later today.

Theblue badge allows people with disabilities to park in disabled parkiong spaces, for free or on yellow lines. However the system has increasingly been open to abuse.

Critics say some local authorities do not punish those who obtain them fraudulently or allow them to be misused and give them out too easily. One charity has called for consistency across local councils in how they are issued.

Blue badges are issued to people who recieve the mobility supplement or higher rate disability living allowance, registered blind, or receive a war pensioner’sand to other people with mobility problems who undergo an assessment from their doctor. The number of blue badges has soared in recent years with an estimated 2.5 million now in circulation nationally.

Helen Dolphin, Policy co-ordinater for the disabled motorists charity Mobilise says “there is a need for much greater consistency with councils taking more care over who gets them”. Ms Dolphin also wants people to be educated about the proper use: “A lot of family members think they can use it” — even without the disabled person being in the car! “There are also cases of carers thinking they can use it to park when they go shopping.

Paul Slowey of Blue Badge Fraud Investigation Ltd, which investigates blue badge abuse on behalf of councils, says that in some city areas up to 50% of badges are being wrongly used. He says the powers are there for local authorities to mount prosecutions for fraud when they detect misuse, but “historically enforcement has been dreadful”.

Mr Slowey points to the rail network where ticket fraud fell after companies introduced strict measures aimed at fare dodgers. “If the use of blue badges is enforced properly then the scheme will function as it should,” he said.

Since the introduction of a new government and the promise to overhaul the welfare and benefits system, on December 6th 2010 it was announced that Personal Independence Payment was going to replace Disability Living Allowance (DLA).

The DWP said – Disability Living Allowance needs to better reflect disabled peoples’ needs and extra costs they might incur in society today. The proposals set out in the consultation are centred on creating a clearer, more targeted benefit, with an objective assessment, designed to enable disabled people to participate more fully in society. To mark this important change, Disability Living Allowance will now be known as Personal Independence Payment, and will continue to be paid to people in and out of work.

The reason behind the reform of this benefit is because it needs to follow a social rather than medical model, which is based on a person’s needs and the barriers they face rather than their individual disability. Currently almost 3 million people receive this benefit at a forecast cost of £12 billion per year.

The minister for disability Maria Miller said “We want the views of disabled people to be fully reflected in any change we make to DLA and we remain fully committed to the principles of DLA as a non-means tested cash benefit to assist with the extra costs incurred by disabled people”

At the moment the DWP is in consultation with charities and organizations for disabled people and are looking for input from people whom this will effect. The published consultation can be found at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/consultations/2010/dla-reform.shtml

The new range of ramps from Estorramps have ensured that getting up stairs or over steps is no longer a problem for wheel chair users. The design of the ramp is lightweightweight and very strong due to it’s aluminum and carbon fibre structure.

It is going to be very interesting to see how the company develop this product further and help every day mobility issues facing disabled people. The team of 20 people are working on a range of designs at the moment so the ramp can be used on any set of staairs.

The new design has a special mechanism that prevents roll back and maintains the safety of the disabled person using the ramp at all times. The new range is looking at ramps that can be set up in place in under a minute whilst still maintaining the high level of specification.

Thankfully cinemas now cater for disabled people and I went to the local cinema last week to see a movie. It was a shame that I picked Wednesday as it was Orange Wednesday and queued up for 45 minutes. I did feel sorry for the people who were standing!

Buy Movie Tickets Online is the website that I seen the trailer for Inception on. A film with an interesting plot line but very long so I was I pleased I had brought my own comfortable seat along and did not need to suffer from the hard cinema seats.

There is a special deal for disabled people that buy one ticket and go in free plus level access, so it was great to go for a night out with no need to wory about getting in or out. It was a night when I felt sorry for the poor able bodied people who were queuing up and enduriung 2 and a half hours in hard cinema seats!