Making Care Fair

07/09/2026

An interesting article as the new school year gets under way.

How health and family support systems are failing children starting school. The real reasons children's school readiness has declined

26/08/2026

Very good reminder for everyone...

Make sure you have enough prescription medicine before the bank holiday weekend begins.

Many pharmacies and GP surgeries will need up to seven working days’ notice to issue a repeat prescription.

Please order any repeat prescriptions you need as early as possible.

Don’t forget to pack your medication if visiting family and friends over the long weekend too.

For more: https://orlo.uk/Zm15V

26/08/2026

Making Care Fair's Beth Hooper is going to be on BBC Essex at 1115 talking about our work around social care and all the issues that need to be raised to help those in the Learning Disability and Neurodivergent community. Tune in if you have time!

25/08/2026

ooh - this is interesting - HPV self-testing kit at home...would that be easier for anyone?

We have spoken about this to a few people as we knew it was coming. NHS has announced it is offering millions of women a discreet HPV self-testing kit for cervical screening at home.
This can then be posted off to await results. It is initially being offered to those who have not taken up their GP offer of screening.

More information can be found on the NHS website link below.

Please let us know if this helps you or your family member to better access screening opportunities and how you get on with the new kit if you take up the offer.

Link: https://www.england.nhs.uk/2026/08/nhs-rolls-out-discreet-home-testing-kits-against-cervical-cancer-for-millions-of-women/?fbclid=IwY2xjawT6etZwZG9mAWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR6ZUMTWJLQGqTkE7FWCMZ8hh9dqry_vWDsvSXXILmXBP7S59YxSvXvtZ-n2WA_aem_zddRKRI0TJ6dusbyCfJenA

21/08/2026

Thanks to the brilliant people who collect all the information on the LeDeR programme. That has allowed some researchers from King's College London to prove that people living with severe intellectual disabilities are dying 24 years younger on average than the wider population, a study has found, with 40% of such deaths being avoidable.

The study also found that within this group, people from minority ethnic backgrounds were dying 14 years younger than their white counterparts.

Researchers from King’s College London analysed data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the LeDeR programme of 1,301 adults with severe or profound intellectual disability who died in England between 2021 and 2023.

They then compared this with 2,626 adults with a mild or moderate intellectual disability and 536,311 adults from the general population who died in 2022.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/aug/17/severe-intellectual-disabilities-life-expectancy-study?CMP=share_btn_url&fbclid=IwY2xjawT1CttwZG9mAWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR57dJwZD3Zg0VdRLKqh3kpTKh-xxhV3Wu38-QdOsS3vmHP-sAtxjP0czQhHDg_aem__51czdhnw5flLX07J6Bk8g

Exclusive: Research also finds stark ethnic disparities, and 40% of deaths among group classed as avoidable

21/08/2026

Um, this is worrying - how many of them were adults with learning disabilites...?

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has admitted terminating the claims of more than 1,200 disabled people who failed to engage with “migrating” onto universal credit, raising fresh fears ov…

20/08/2026

Good to see this subject being discussed. So much going on for so many people...

Rachel, a sandwich carer, cares for her Dad who has been experiencing long term health issues following cancer treatment, while also looking after her two young daughters, one with Type 1 Diabetes, and the other awaiting an Autism assessment. Her caring responsibilities mean she rarely gets a break.

Today, she was interviewed on BBC Radio 5 Live alongside our Head of Policy and Public Affairs, Tamara Sandoul, about our new report highlighting the unrelenting pressures sandwich carers face and what needs to be done to help: https://carersuk.pulse.ly/qiwekhtoh6

Listen to the interview now, from 2 hours 18 minutes:
https://bbc.pulse.ly/ao0e0khnaz

20/08/2026

Interesting explanation of what is worrying about Robert Jenrick's plans...

20/08/2026

Be worried. They have gone from immigrants to using disabled people as their new popularity target. Please do look at the Fact Check underneath...

FACT CHECK: THE £7,000 “PER FAMILY” WELFARE CLAIM

Reform’s £7,000 figure sounds terrifying — until you see how they calculated it.

They simply take the entire forecast welfare bill and divide it by the number of households in Britain.

That gives roughly £7,000 per household.

But that is not the amount an ordinary family pays in tax towards welfare. Households do not all pay the same amount of tax. A low-income household, an average earner and a millionaire contribute completely different amounts.

So presenting £7,000 as an annual “tax burden on every family” makes the figure sound far more personal — and far more frightening — than it really is.

If “Honest Bob” wanted to give people meaningful context, he could simply tell them welfare spending excluding pensions as a share of total government spending:

Now: 12.7%
2030/31: 13.1%

That’s an increase of just 0.4 percentage points.

So instead of telling families “welfare will cost you £7,000 a year”, the more honest explanation is:

For every £100 the government spends, around £12.70 currently goes on non-pension welfare. By 2030/31, that is forecast to rise to about £13.10.

Quite a different impression, isn’t it?

Robert Jenrick