Disabled People Against Cuts Northern Ireland (DPAC NI) is deeply alarmed by a suggestion buried within the Department of Health’s recently published Health & Social Care Reset Plan (July 2025): the introduction of charges for home care. We want to be absolutely clear — we will work by all means necessary to oppose this regressive policy.
The Reset Plan outlines major structural reforms across health and social care, emphasising neighbourhood-based services, primary care investment, and a £300 million efficiency drive to address a projected £600 million funding gap this year. But charging for essential home support runs totally counter to the ambition of care that’s accessible and community-centred.
Looking to England and Wales, where home-care charges have already been implemented, the outcomes are stark: disabled people forced deeper into debt and poverty, with dwindling options for independent living. This is not reform — it is dismantling rights and reinforcing inequality.
What Northern Ireland urgently needs is a rights-based reform of social care — and disabled people must be at the heart of this transformation. That means Health Minister Mike Nesbitt must pause any plans to introduce home-care charges and instead consult directly and meaningfully with DPAC NI and other disabled-led groups.
At a moment when Westminster continues to slash disability benefits, the Northern Ireland Executive must step up. We need solidarity, investment, and a social care system rooted in equity, dignity, and justice — not financial barriers that punish people for being disabled.
Why the term “Reset Plan” matters here
The Reset Plan sets out seven pillars — from prevention and community care to digital innovation and system-wide collaboration. Charging for home care would sharply contradict those goals:
- It undermines efforts to bring care into local communities.
- It threatens the promise of joined-up, equitable social care.
- It disproportionately impacts disabled people, threatening to erode independence and worsen health inequality.
Our clear demands
- Immediate reversal of any consideration to charge for home care.
- Full engagement with DPAC NI and disabled-led organisations in shaping social care reform.
- Guaranteed funding to support universal, needs-based home care — free at the point of use.
- A social care system that boosts, rather than burdens, disabled people — especially as austerity bites.
The Reset Plan is a critical opportunity to reinvent care in Northern Ireland. But any path forward must preserve dignity and independence — not impose debt. DPAC NI stands ready to defend these rights. The question now is: will Stormont choose investment, or inequality?
DPAC Northern Ireland 
Leave a comment