Are Disabled Facilities Grants slow, costly and frustrating? Or an effective way of delaying the need for residential care?

"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion". Paul Smith, director of Foundations, has written for us about analytics and benchmarking in the provision of DFGs

Read his article here

 

There are some 25,000 children in Britain living with sight loss, and 286,000 with a learning disability. Their needs are very individual and varied.

What role can assistive technology play in supporting disabled students to benefit fully from their education?

Read more here

 

As the Chancellor of the Exchequer apparently believes that having more disabled people in the workforce contributes to poor productivity, it's perhaps not altogether surprising that disabled jobseekers still face an uphill struggle, and the disability employment gap has not shifted significantly in the past decade.

The long-standing commitment to halve it by 2020 has been quietly dropped. What is the current state of affairs in the recruitment industry? Can their Disability Initiative Awards make a difference?

Find out more here

 

Embarrassment and a reluctance to talk about a condition that will affect one in three of us at some stage in our lives, is preventing the development of innovative new solutions.

Can you even come up with a justification for continuing to charge VAT on incontinence supplies – costing people £150 million a year, and frequently preventing them accessing the best products?

Find out more here

  

The government and network providers said that mobile phone coverage would be improved by the end of this year, so that 90% of the country had good coverage, with a promised £5 billion investment.

If you think things are actually getting worse, not better, you're not wrong. Fuss Free Phones' Simon Rockman has found customers unable to get a signal with their easy-to-use 2G phones – anyone with a smart phone will be in a worse situation.

Read more here

  

If you provide high quality products and services, and you would like to reach our site visitors and newsletter readers, please email derek@independentliving.co.uk

 

New freephone numbers have now come into use at the DWP, for various benefit enquiries.

Information on Independent Living has been updated accordingly.

Access our benefits section here 

 

Next week's newsletter will be the last of 2017. Look out for something a little different!

 

Don't forget that you can apply to join the Independent Living Facebook group, if you would like to spend more time discussing these themes with other interested people. 

There are various ways you can get in touch with us: email me; visit our Facebook page and leave a message there; or if it's short and sweet, Tweet!

Previous newsletters are archived here.

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Until next time, all good wishes,

Frances