Sector must be prepared for individual care budgets, says report
By John Plummer, Third Sector Online, 16 November 2009 Acevo convenes commission on the personalisation of public services A group of leaders from the voluntary and public sectors have called for the creation of a powerful new Cabinet Office unit to oversee the personalisation of public services.  The Government has proposed giving people

DisabledGo-Health - Empowering Disabled People in Hertfordshire
Launch of UK's first online national disabled access guide to healthcare services DisabledGo, the UK's foremost provider of disabled access information, has launched a new initiative aimed at transforming patient satisfaction amongst disabled people.  DisabledGo-Health is the UK's first comprehensive online national disabled-access guide to healthcare services providing free, detailed access information to, for example, local hospitals, dentists and GPs. This new online guide comes after years of research that documents how difficult it is for the UK's 11 million disabled people to find access to healthcare that is appr

New grants aim to get more disabled people volunteering
Applications are now open for grants designed to help organisations enable more disabled people to volunteer. Grants of between £250 and £5,000, are available to help overcome barriers that stop disabled people volunteering, such as specific equipment, a lack of suitable access and understanding of disability issues. These grants are part of the £2 million 'Access to Volunteering Fund', which was developed by the Office of the Third Sector as a pilot scheme in Greater London, the West Midlands and the North West. The fund operates between Autumn 2009 and Spring 2011 over five grant rounds. The first deadline for applications is 1 December 2009. Howev

Disabled people's groups give stark warning
Managers of vital services for disabled people say more Portsmouth residents must make use of them or they will be cut.   Dial-a-Ride and Shopmobility help people who struggle to move get out and about in the community by offering mini-bus rides and mobility scooters.Community Transport provides cheap bus hire for any group to go on day trips out of the city.But the services, which are subsidised by Portsmouth City Council, rely on small fees paid by users to cover costs.And managers say many people don't know they exist, meaning they struggle to make ends meet.Craig Beetlestone,

Intel Launches Text Reading Device
Chip giant Intel has shown-off a device designed to give vision-impaired and dyslexic people access to printed text. The device, known as the Reader, captures text and then reads it aloud and displays it on its built-in screen. The development is unusual because so-called “assistive technologies” are normally manufactured by specialist companies rather than global giants. The Reader is the size of a paperback book and uses a high-resolution camera and Intel’s Atom processor. The 600g (1.3lb) device was developed by Intel access technology dire