Carers Bucks Gives Up Bucks Council Contract

Articles in Carers

Carers Bucks Gives Up Bucks Council Contract

May 7, 2026May 7, 2026 admin

Carers Bucks has given up its £4 million council-funded contract to support carers in Buckinghamshire. In a shock move, Carers Bucks decided not to re-apply for the contract, which has been awarded to Mobilise Ltd instead. While no formal announcement has yet been made, many observers fear that the Carers Bucks charity may now close later in the year.

All main councils in England are funded by the Government to commission services to support carers in their area. For many years, Buckinghamshire Council has given a contract to Carers Bucks, a local registered charity, to provide those services. From 1 July 2026, however, a private health entrepreneur, Mobilise Ltd, will be supporting Bucks carers instead.

Details of the service that Mobilise will provide in Bucks is not yet clear. However, Mobilise has the carers support contract for many councils, including Milton Keynes, Luton & Bedford, and the service provided there is primarily online. Carers in those areas can apply online for ‘dynamic digital carers’ assessments’ which creates an online ‘personalised support plan’. This is claimed to allow social workers to ‘proactively track a carer’s needs’ and help them to receive ‘continuous tailored support’. This digital, online, model, if rolled out in Bucks, would be very different from that provided by Carers Bucks, which is based on more traditional face-to-face and group support for carers.

Under contract and employment law, Carers Bucks will transfer information, paid staff and some resources to Mobilise Ltd when they take over. However, it is not clear whether activities, groups and volunteers provided by Carers Bucks outside their council contract will survive after 30 June.

Carers Bucks have said that its CareFest events in June will go ahead as planned. Billed as a celebration of carer friendly communities, the events may now be a bittersweet marking of the end of Carers Bucks’ long history in the voluntary sector in Bucks.

A group of disabled people protesting outside the Houses of Parliament against the Assisted Dying Bill

BuDS Welcomes Failure of Assisted Suicide Bill

April 24, 2026April 24, 2026 admin

BuDS Disability Service has welcomed the Parliamentary failure of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill today, Friday 24 April. This Bill is commonly known as the Assisted Dying or Assisted Suicide Bill. This failure at Westminster marked the defeat of all the Suicide Bills attempted to be rushed through British parliaments by lobbyists in the last two years.

Welcoming the Parliamentary failure, BuDS said:

“The failure of the Bill is good news for dying people, for the NHS and for Britain. We say this for two main reasons:

This Bill would have done nothing to address the humanitarian concerns that many people have about end-of-life care. It was a lobbyist Bill designed to introduce suicide on demand for NHS patients, something which no political party or politician had ever even mentioned before this Bill was introduced.
The Bill was dangerous because it did not protect the basic human rights of British people. This was said from the start by disability and human rights groups like BuDS but was dramatically proven when the Lord Chancellor had to prevent a similar Bill, in the Isle of Man Parliament, from becoming law on these exact grounds”.

Much has been said about how this Bill has been ‘blocked’ by unscrupulous Parliamentary tactics, especially by ‘unelected Lords’. The reality is rather different. This Bill was not Government legislation, but a Private Members Bill (PMB). PMBs cannot be used to make complex and controversial legal reforms because they do not have enough Parliamentary time, even in the best of circumstances, to make such broad changes. The Terminally Ill Adults Bill was doomed to fail from the start by the incompetence of its sponsors and multimillionaire lobbyist backers, not by any Parliamentary blocking.

The passage of this Bill through Parliament has proved that the welfare of dying people and the protection of vulnerable people cannot be left to opaquely-funded, multimillionaire lobbying groups, especially those ideologically committed to suicide and euthanasia. A properly informed national conversation about end-of-life care and assisted suicide must happen before there is any future attempt at legislation. A Royal Commission or similar independent official body must now look at all the issues, consult widely, gather objective evidence and make recommendations. BuDS and other disabled-led organisations are ready to play their part in that conversation.

Back in the Saddle – Update 30

July 18, 2022July 18, 2022 admin

I just wanted to do one final post about my mad challenge of cycling the equivalent distance of the route from Land’s End to John o’Groats on my exercise bike.

Back in the Saddle – Update 29

July 6, 2022July 6, 2022 admin

I have finally done it! After 528 days I have finally completed my exercise bike challenge. I have now pedalled the equivalent distance of the entire Land’s End to John o’Groats route.

Back in the Saddle – Update 28

June 27, 2022July 6, 2022 admin

I seem to remember in my last post saying something about hopefully finishing my exercise bike challenge (cycling the equivalent of the distance from Lands’ End to John o’Groats) by the 17 month anniversary of when I started. That would have meant I finished on 24th June 2022. As you can see, I haven’t quite achieved that. Once again, life had other plans.

Back in the Saddle – Update 27

May 30, 2022June 27, 2022 admin

Well, who would believe it, I’ve made it to another checkpoint on my exercise bike virtual challenge! I’ve now reached Dunrobin Castle and with only 116km left to go, the end is in definitely in sight. You never know, but I might actually reach John o’Groats by the 17 month anniversary of when I first started this ridiculously mad-cap challenge 🙂

Back in the Saddle – Update 26

May 5, 2022May 30, 2022 admin

It’s taken me a while, but I have now reached Loch Ness! Only 251km left of my mammoth exercise bike challenge, covering the virtual route from Land’s End to John o’Groats. Even better is that I’m now actually very slightly ahead of schedule to get to the finish before the new end date I set back in January.

Back in the Saddle – Update 25

March 24, 2022April 13, 2022 admin

Today I have managed to reach Edinburgh Castle on my exercise bike challenge – pedalling the equivalent distance of the route from Land’s End to John o’Groats. I’m nearly 3/4 of the way through too, and it feels like I might actually be able to achieve this goal. I never envisaged, when I started on 24 January 2021, that I would still be slowly pedalling away as we approach April 2022! However, I am still going, that blue ‘distance completed’ line is gradually getting longer and I will get there eventually. Every turn of the pedals gets me a tiny bit closer to the finish.

Back in the Saddle – Update 24

March 1, 2022April 13, 2022 admin

I am really getting there – I’ve now achieved 2 pretty monumental targets on my virtual exercise bike challenge, pedalling the equivalent distance of the route from Land’s End to John o’Groats. I am 2/3 of the way through the journey AND I’ve reached the England / Scotland border!

Back in the Saddle – Update 23

February 23, 2022April 13, 2022 admin

On Monday I reached the next checkpoint at Hadrian’s Wall, on my exercise bike challenge (covering the distance from Land’s End to John o’Groats). The route from Bradford took me through Penrith. Strange to think that in 2013 we actually cycled through there in real life on our family holiday cycling the Coast2Coast route. I remember cycling through there very well because there was a very steep hill. I’m glad I don’t have to tackle all those hills on my exercise bike! Life has changed a lot since 2013, but positivity, amazing family and friends along with determination are keeping me going.