CONFERENCE: Social care needs overhaul say Lib Dems

From Cathy Reay in Bournemouth

Disabled campaigners voiced their concerns over social care at the Liberal Democrat party conference yesterday.

Party members urged the Lib Dems to guide the government to a severe overhaul of social care services during a fringe meeting hosted by three disability charities.

The issues raised at the meeting included bringing in a more flexible approach to benefits, ensuring services that work together don’t shift responsibility onto one another, increasing salaries for those on the front line of health and social care and working further on the postcode lottery and how this affects disabled people in ‘bad’ regions.

David Simpson, a disabled party member from Aldershot, said: “The biggest problem we always find is the attitude of 'it’s not my budget; it’s yours' between local authorities and public health services that should be working together rather than shifting responsibility.

We’ve got far too many people higher up in the ranks with too much money and too much management.”

Robert Adamson, a disabled Lib Dem council candidate in East Yorkshire, added: “You’ve got a Primary Care Trust that covers part of a region and another that covers the rest, some of it overlaps and it just doesn’t work out.”

Gemma Roulston, who is disabled and works with the Lib Dem Disability Association said: “Eligibility to benefits and to care should be a lot easier than it is. We need to teach the Department for Work and Pensions and social workers what those conditions mean and in turn those that are eligible need to know what they are entitled to.”

Greg Mulholland MP for Leeds North-West and member of the party’s health team said: “We need to try and get any issues around social care, particularly for disabled people, on the political agenda now otherwise it will go ignored in manifestos for the upcoming election campaign.

Social care is underfunded and undervalued and the challenge now is how that can change in the next parliament.”