We are not alone

The lady who went on hunger strike (Mrs Cavill-Burch) over lack of care and support has my sympathy. I can hear the public now - 'this can't be happening in our society in this day and age' - but it can, and it does. It did to us for 19 years. We have a service now, but like her spent many years suffering acute sleep deprivation. At one point a District Nurse confiscated our car keys as she felt we were too tired to drive safely - but it didn't get us a service. We didn't try hunger strikes - just didn't think of it - maybe we should have. We got our service after much shouting, embarrassing the local Authority and NHS in public and setting it up ourselves with the help of two local charitable providers. I suspect there's little help we can offer Mrs Cavill-Burch other than to say the publicity, though painful, may be enough to start the services off, but it won't just happen. If we can help, get in touch. For news report see BBC at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/10547319.stm

This subject is being raised in Parliament on 13th July at the All Party Group on Learning Disability meeting. The Raising Our Sights report is being presented there and for once spells out how big and bad this issue is. There's a copy on the department of Healths own website at http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/@ps/documents/digitalasset/dh_114347.pdf

We are not alone, we're isolated. There are a lot of us out there but we're trapped in our homes doing the care, and are invisible. And the services (NHS and Social Services) find us too difficult to deal with because it is hard. So they ignore us, in the hope we'll keep quiet. And on top of this - the cuts are coming.