The Valuing People Now Annual Review published in December 2010, which can be downloaded here highlights an alarming discrepancy between demand and supply in care and support services for people with a learning disability.
The review noted that 113 out of 152 Learning Disability Partnership Boards reported that they were not getting a supply of the type of care and support services they wanted from their local market and had plans to make changes in their purchasing. Specifically, many providers were still offering conventional residential care packages and few were moving to supporting people in their own homes.
Given the straightened economic times we live in, it’s difficult to fathom why providers aren’t keeping abreast of market developments in a bid to boost their business. Clearly clinging on to outmoded business models, like registered care homes, isn’t going to be a constructive strategy for the achieving future growth given purchasing intentions.
Anecdotal evidence, gained from conversations with both commissioners and purchasers, suggests that the lack of decent ordinary housing solutions for people with a learning disability is a major impediment to change. Much of the transformation agenda rests on this simple fact: people have to live somewhere.
It has to be said that housing options available for people with a learning disability are pretty woeful at the moment. The recent massive changes to how affordable and social housing is delivered and financed have not been progressive, from a learning disabled person’s perspective. Renting in the private sector, for people relying on welfare benefits for their income, is problematic. People using this route to independence are consigned to living in property at the bottom end of the market with little security of tenure. Waiting for social housing through the local authority can take years and the supply of dedicated housing – sometimes called supported housing – is going to be very limited over the next few years. The new affordable rent properties to be developed by housing associations look to be beyond the reach of many disabled people and the government’s shared ownership scheme for disabled people has also fallen foul of the cuts in public expenditure. However, all is not lost.
There are ways of getting decent housing for disabled people. And Buy To Help is such an innovative solution. Care and support providers, who have always helped put a roof over people’s heads (albeit in residential care homes) have a vital role to play in this new initiative.
Download the brochure »