Institute of Health News

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Authors: Steve Broach, Luke Clements and Janet Read

Disabled children: a legal handbook is an authoritative, yet accessible, guide to the legal rights of disabled children and their families in England and Wales. The authors expertly navigate the many, often overlapping, sources of law, explaining the difference between what public bodies must do to support disabled children and that which they may do.

Disabled children and their families have the same human rights as others, including the right to live 'ordinary lives'. The law in relation to disabled children is complex and frequently misunderstood by those who have duties and responsibilities towards them. Many families also lack essential information about legal matters which substantially affect their lives and about the ways the law might be used to assist them.

This handbook clearly sets out the law in key areas, in particular children's social care services, education and health care. It includes a summary of the key provisions of the Equality Act 2010, which are newly in force.

 Contents include:

• Legal entitlements
• Understanding disabled children's lives
• Legal fundamentals
• Children's services
• Education
• Health
• Welfare benefits
• Housing
• Carers
• Equality and discrimination
• Transition to adulthood
• Appendices: extracts from legislation, guidance and international conventions

Disabled children: a legal handbook aims to empower disabled children and their families through a greater understanding of their rights and entitlements. It is essential reading for the families of disabled children, their advocates and lawyers, voluntary and statutory sector advisers, commissioners, managers and lawyers working for public authorities, education, social and health care professionals, students and academics.

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Following the study reported in the publication ‘The Real Cost of Poor Housing’, addition work has been carried out to refine the findings.  This has been published in an Information Paper released last Friday ‘Quantifying the cost of poor housing’ (see attached).  A major finding from this work is that ‘... if all English housing stock below the historic average of SAP 41 is brought up to at least the current average (SAP 50+) through heating and insulation improvements, the health cost–benefit to the NHS would be some £750 million per annum’.

(Note - SAP is the Standard Assessment Procedure used to assess energy efficiency of housing on a scale of 1 to 100.)

Information paper: Quantifying the Cost of Poor Housing 

The Real Cost of Poor Housing