Our campaign aimed at securing better health provision for the UK’s 130,000 adults with Cerebral Palsy is facing accusations of wasting money and sending an obscene card from an unnamed member of the House of Lords.
The Charity Commission has also written to UP – The Adult Cerebral Palsy Movement, following a complaint accusing the charity of wasting funds on the mailing.
Last month, UP sent each member of the House of Lords a card containing 42p in coins to mark the first anniversary of a co-sponsored report from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Cerebral Palsy. The report examined the barriers faced by adults with Cerebral Palsy in the workplace and the urgent need for better health provision. Key recommendations included implementing NICE guidelines on specialised support services, clear care pathways, and annual patient reviews.
A health economics study commissioned by UP revealed that proper healthcare would cost £20m per year or 42p per day for each adult with Cerebral Palsy. The study also showed that if 4,000 more adults with Cerebral Palsy gained employment, it would generate an economic gain of £80m per annum.
Emma Livingstone, CEO and Co-Founder of UP, says:
“I was extremely upset to receive this letter from the unnamed member of the House of Lords and the letter from the Charity Commission. We are the only charity supporting the UK’s population of 130,000 adults with Cerebral Palsy and feel it is absolutely right to have spent £336 in coins to dramatise the many challenges they face every day.
“I can only assume that the same unnamed, unelected, individual has chosen to make the equally upsetting complaint to the Charity Commission. Instead of attacking our charity, they could surely have spent their time more usefully asking the Government to ensure this population of adults – similar in size to those with MS and Parkinson’s disease – get the level of support and services they equally deserve by implementing the existing NICE Guidelines.
Strangely, they also seem to have missed our encouragement under the coins in the card to ‘donate this money to a charity of your choice’.”
Write to your MP complaining about this ‘obscene’ attack on our community, and pointing out that decent CP care provision would only cost 42p per day per adult with CP in the UK.