By Mencap
Here are just a few of the achievements and highlights the policy team are proud to have played an active role in this year.
- Working with Baroness Hollins to secure an amendment to the Health and Care Act to legislate for the Oliver McGowan
Mandatory
Mandatory means that something must be done.
Training on
Learning Disability
A learning disability is to do with the way someone's brain works. It makes it harder for someone to learn, understand or do things.
and
Autism
Autism is a disability. Autistic people find it difficult to understand what other people think and feel. They also find it difficult to tell people what they think and feel. Everyone with autism is different.
for all health and
social care
Social care means the services that give care and support to people who need it.
staff.
- Pushing
the government
The Government are the people who run the country. The Government decide how much tax people should pay and how things like the National Health Service (NHS) should work.
to table regulations to protect the cost-of-living payments from being able to be taken by Local Authorities as payment towards someone’s social care contributions.
-
As part of Disabled Children's Partnership, we supported parents to take part in the consultation
Consultation is finding out what people think about something.
on the government’s SEND Green Paper – with more than 1,800 using DCP’s six simple questions to send their views to government.
- Successfully campaigned with others in the sector for the Government to uprate benefits in line with inflation.
- Successfully secured additional funding from Government to support people with a learning disability in apprenticeships as well as a commitment to open up apprenticeships to more people with a learning disability by extending the flexibilities that enable people to access apprenticeships without the usual requirements in English and Maths.
-
Launched Policy Shapers, a way for people with a learning disability and their families to get involved in Mencap’s policy work by sharing their experiences and views to help tell the Government what life is like for them.
- Over 200,000 people signed our joint petitions to ensure the government provide cost of living support and an energy price cap alongside 38 Degrees, RNIB, Save the Children, Leonard Cheshire, and others.
- Successfully lobbied for the new integration bodies – ICBs – to have a lead
representative
A representative is also called a rep. A representative is someone who speaks up for everyone in their group or team.
for Learning Disability and Autism to ensure that their needs are always taken into account when decisions about health and social care are made.