New support available to disabled people thanks to Wrexham man’s campaign

Improvements have been made to the way care is delivered for more than 1,000 disabled people in Wales to help ensure they get the support they need to live independent lives.

Local Assembly Member, Lesley Griffiths, has welcomed the Welsh Government’s latest announcement and congratulated Wrexham resident, Nathan Lee Davies, who headed a strong campaign and made representations to the Deputy Minister for Health & Social Services, Julie Morgan AM, on the matter.

Concerns regarding the Welsh Independent Living Grant (WILG) were initially raised when it was announced the responsibility for the scheme, which had been introduced after the abolition of the Independent Living Fund (ILF), was to be passed onto local authorities to manage from April this year.

Nathan feared the changes would have a detrimental effect on his wellbeing and initiated the ‘Save WILG’ campaign.

The hard work has paid off as under the latest proposals, additional measures have been put in place to ensure nobody who was once in receipt of WILF, and its predecessor ILF, misses out as a result of the changes.

An independent social work assessment will be offered to all former ILF recipients who are unhappy with their new care and support package and would like a second opinion.

The Welsh Government will provide additional funding to local authorities for the cost of the workers to carry out these independent assessments and additional care hours that may result from the assessments.

Lesley Griffiths AM said: “It was vitally important that people who previously received payments from the Welsh Independent Living Grant were not negatively affected by the transition.  These latest measures will help ensure the new system is implemented properly, assuring levels of care and support throughout Wales are delivered consistently.”

“There’s no doubt the Save WILG campaign made a real difference.  Having met with Nathan a number of times, it was always clear to see the extra stress and anxiety this was causing him.  I am pleased to have helped facilitate the Minister’s meeting with Nathan in Wrexham and I hope all the individuals who feared they were going to be adversely affected are happy with the outcome.”

The £27m Welsh Independent Living Grant (WILG) was originally set up in 2015 following a decision by the UK coalition Government to close the Independent Living Fund.

Welsh Government consulted with partners to develop a long term strategy.  A two-year transition period began in April 2017 in which all former ILF recipients in Wales who were now in receipt of payments under WILG would have their care needs assessed by their local authority to ensure a care plan was agreed and support package put in place.

While the transition period resulted in the majority of recipients being satisfied with the new arrangements, some former IFL recipients, who had not been subject to a care assessment since 2015, were concerned by the change in approach with, the reassessment causing tension in some cases.

Yesterday’s (12 Feb) announcement by the Welsh Government aims to address the inconsistencies.  Evidence suggests the variation between local authorities warrants a change in direction and the Welsh Government has written to local government leaders to request a pause of the transition with immediate effect in order to bring in revised arrangements.