There is a better way to organise disability support

The shocking and very widely condemned Labour Government attack on disabled people is based around limiting or reducing access to benefits, and therefore its opponents are calling for the cuts to benefits to be reversed. But both approaches contain a significant flaw, and there is a better way to support disabled people.

At the moment the model is that people are 'empowered' to source their own care support via a small grant (the Personal Independence Payments) which they can use to purchase care services from a market of care providers. There are very many problems with this approach.

For a start, people with (for example) mental health issues, isolated and on their own, may not be the best judge of what kind of support is going to provide them the best outcomes. We don't give people a small grant for a heart attack and ask them to diagnose themselves and seek treatment from a free market in surgeons.

In addition, the size of the small grant (PIP) is such that it doesn't empower anyone, it barely covers the kinds of services more acute cases need. And in any case the way the system is set up the payments are directed at essential material support (such as help cooking or shopping) and not at solutions which might change the situation the person is in.

Common Weal believes we should take a different approach. We believe there should be a National Care Service which has Care Hubs in communities in exactly the same way that the NHS has GP practices. People unable to work would then be supported by a team of professionals who would help and support them with both their immediate material needs but also in finding pathways out of needing intense care (for those where it is possible).

Rather than small payments to maintain the status quo, proper care packages would offer a combined living support and therapeutic support programme to genuinely help people who have a chance to overcome the condition that is preventing them from working or taking part in other social activities.

This means coordinating fragmented resources under a National Care Service. Doing this well would require more investment up-front to reduce costs substantially in the future, but even taking a different approach inside existing funding envelopes (but with disparate sources of funding consolidated) would make a significant difference.

An effective care system is neither about parking people on benefits and trapping them in anguish for the long term nor coercing them into situations they are unequipped for through starvation. It is about supporting people, helping those who can recover recover, supporting those who can't to manage their condition over the long term.

Read our inspiring vision for care in Scotland here.