With more people dying each year and many spending their final days in institutions, researchers argue that wider access to palliative care could offer a more humane and cost-effective alternative, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
AS TIME drags on before the long-awaited social care reforms are announced, a group rarely mentioned by ministers — those who are under 60 and disabled — need urgent action to address the problems in their care and support at home.
For professional care at home there are two main routes, home care directly supplied by the council, or the cost of that care given to the service user in the form of direct payments so they can purchase their own care, with or without a personal assistant.
People who have disabilities want to be as independent as possible but often they find the care they receive though direct payments isn’t flexible enough to support their needs.
Labour will find increases in the state pension age are unacceptable, just as cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance, personal independence payments and universal credit are — it needs to change direction immediately, writes PCS general secretary FRAN HEATHCOTE
GEOFF BOTTOMS, who has worked in a palliative care hospice for 11 years, argues the postcode lottery for proper end-of-life care must be ended to give the terminally ill choice and agency



