I AM writing to comment on your report in last weeks Gazette with the headline Carers angry at fees for disabled services.
Mencap successfully campaigned several years ago to stop charges for people with learning disabilities in day care. While understanding the technicalities of the council having to charge for services they are to run on behalf of the Health Service, from the customers' point of view it is unacceptable.
People with disabilities are often long-term or permanently unemployed and do not have savings that might be drawn on.
It is a strange world where we as taxpayers have to put billions into the banks and then we want to charge disabled people for essential services.
Mencap will be seeking a meeting with the council and will certainly campaign to resist this iniquitous and bureaucratic change. Perhaps we could ask Sir Fred to pay; he gets more in pension in a couple of months than disabled people receive in a lifetime.
JULIAN HILLMAN
Executive director Ealing Mencap
