Publisher's Synopsis
The last decade has seen major developments aimed at expanding the options available to severely disabled people who choose to live in the community rather than in residential care. Two of the most important of these have been the financial support offered by the Independent Living Funds and the legislation of local authority direct payments. There are how, however, growing tensions between raised expectations and ever tightening constraints on the expenditure of funding agencies. Although on the one hand direct payments have opened up opportunities and acknowledgement of disabled people's aspirations for independence, ridged expenditure ceiling can mean that funding for anything other than securing a person's safety in their own home is squeezed out. What price independence? Shows that the consequences of rationing include wide discrepancies between outcomes for people with similar needs, depending on where they live and when their support packages were first set up. It also shows that many high-support packages are complex patchworks of provision determined more by professional rules and timetables than the choice of the user, but that these barriers to independence are not insurmountable. There are vital questions to be answered about who should fund expensive community care packages and how funding and provision might be better coordinated. This report, based on research in six local authority areas, highlights factors that need to be taken into account in the debate. It is essential reading for managers and front-line workers in all social and health services as well as those involved in policy development in the Departments of Health and of social Security.
