Letter: Welcome change

Scottish Labour's plans to introduce a new National Care Service will be welcomed by people with learning disabilities and their families across Scotland.

For the first time we have the opportunity to establish a standard system of social care and support wherever you live.

Even though new national criteria were established last year, local authorities can choose how they implement these and how at risk people have to be before they get any service at all.

Figures collected by the Scottish Consortium for Learning Disability show that if you have a learning disability then you are more likely to get a day service in Angus than in Stirling, while people living in Aberdeen are more likely to get help to live on their own than those in Midlothian.

All this has nothing to do with local priorities or democracy. It is the result of a haphazard system of planning built up over many years that no one has ever tried to rationalise or make sense of.

A new National Care Service can bring an end to the postcode lottery of social care and its proposal is to be welcomed as an important step forward.

IAN HOOD

Co-ordinator, Learning Disability Alliance Scotland