‘It’s a tax on disability’: rising English social care costs force many into debt

Soaring costs are pushing disabled people into financial crisis. Photograph: Ivan-balvan/Getty Images

Disabled people are paying “a tax on disability” by being forced to fund soaring care charges out of their benefits as the cost of living pushes care users into financial crisis.

Charities and disabled people’s organisations (DPOs), including Mencap, Scope, the MS Society, Inclusion London, Dimensions, and WinVisible, told the Observer that disabled care users are being pushed into severe financial hardship with some forced to go without essential home care because they can’t afford the fees. Others face up to £20,000 of arrears to their local authority, with some seeing bailiffs called in over care fee debts. One DPO said some disabled women are being coerced into sex by acquaintances after turning to them for care because they couldn’t pay care charges.