Since 2010, BuDS has helped its volunteers towards work. Our Reach4Work project, created in 2018, codified and developed that help, creating a professional wrap-around service for our disabled volunteers who want to move into or closer to work.
BuDS is exceptionally successful at moving disabled jobseeker volunteers into or closer to work…
Please note that the BuDDies scheme is currently on hold due to ongoing challenges facing charity funding across England. Find out more at the button below.
Are you feeling lonely or stressed at home? Need a friendly chat with someone who understands? The BuDS BuDDies are here to help!
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BuDS publishes some of our articles in EasyRead format. These articles are produced by our volunteers, and so our capacity is limited. Over time we will publish more EasyRead articles. Please be patient with us whilst we grow this project.
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The BuDS Enquiries Team answers questions and queries from disabled people about a very wide range of issues. We try to fill the gaps left by other support services and helplines, so we often support disabled people with complex and difficult issues.
Any disabled person in England can contact the Enquiries project for help. Parents, carers, and supporters can also contact us on behalf of a disabled person. We don’t have strict rules about who we can help: we will always do our best to support you and will let you know immediately if, for any reason, we can’t.
The Enquiries project is staffed entirely by volunteers, many of them disabled people themselves. We are often very busy and there may be a delay in getting back to you. We are sorry about this, but we can only do so much. The Enquiries project is not a crisis or emergency service.
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The BuDS SEND Transitions Service is a three-year project funded by The Rothschild Foundation. The purpose of the SEND Transitions Service is to improve the experience of disabled children and young people moving through key transitions within school education and from school education into work or further/higher education. It will do this by:
The SEND Transitions Service is made up of workstreams from a number of BuDS projects, principally Fair4All Education and Reach4Work.
To learn more about the Reach4Work workstream, which is looking at disabled young people’s transition from education to employment, click here.
Fair4All Visitors is a BuDS project to help visitor attractions to be more accessible and inclusive for disabled people.
The Fair4All Education project tackles the most important educational issues facing disabled children and young people, and their parents/carers, in Bucks.
The core of the Fair4All Education project is a ‘working community’ of professionals, parents, carers and disabled young people who are passionate about making a real difference. Working under the BuDS umbrella, the Fair4All Education team works together to define an agenda for action and plan how change will be made to happen.
Read MoreDisabled people are often excluded from outdoor public events. This is not because they do not want to attend these events, but because the way the event is organized and staged creates barriers that make it difficult or impossible for them to attend. BuDS’ free-to-use Fair4All event project helps event organisers remove those barriers and attract more disabled people to their events, making them more successful. There are over 40,000 disabled people in Buckinghamshire and over 100,000 families with a disabled member, so being more accessible can significantly boost an event’s popularity and attendance.
Event organisers are often not aware that they are creating barriers which are reducing the appeal of their events. Event management training and qualifications do not usually cover disabled accessibility and inclusion. Disabled people are so used to events not being accessible that most do not even try to attend, which means event organisers do not see the difficulties that disabled people face.
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Disabled people are sometimes subject to abuse, insults or physical violence because of their disability. The BuDS Fair4All Attitudes and Hate Crime project supports people affected by disability hate, helps them report it to the police if they wish, and campaigns to change attitudes and combat hostility toward disabled people.
Read MoreThe IAG team works tirelessly to produce easy to read, fact-checked and reliable articles about issues relevant to disabled people. During the Covid-19 pandemic, these have included weekly risk posts which break down the latest case, hospitalisation, death and vaccination statistics; analyses of Government policy, and scientific updates about the coronavirus. To read these posts, please see below or visit our Facebook page using the button below:
If you would like to volunteer for the IAG team as a researcher or writer, please visit our volunteering page to find out more.
The Fair4All Card is a secure, evidence based card that can be used by any disabled person to communicate the reasonable adjustments they need.
We created the scheme in August 2020 and have grown from offering around 12 reasonable adjustments to now offering over 40.
Find out more about the scheme below.
Update: 22 June 2026
The Met Office has issued it’s first Red heat warning, covering the London, the South East, Southern Wales, Birmingham and the West Midlands, and parts of Eastern England, the East Midlands, and the South West. A Red warning means that there is a danger to life for all people, not just those listed as vulnerable (below). Everyone should act accordingly, and look after themselves and their communities. More information is available on the Met Office website – use the button below.
The Met Office and NHS have warned that temperatures across England will be dangerously high both during the day and at night over the next week. This is a genuine health risk for many people, and we urge you to take it seriously.
A heat wave can affect anyone, but the following groups are most vulnerable:
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BuDS Disability Service is a user-led disability charity operating in Buckinghamshire, the Thames Valley, and across England. We are a successful, dynamic and influential charity, focused on supporting disabled people by fixing the biggest issues facing them. We aim to build a world which is Fair4All, including disabled people.
BuDS works by permanently removing barriers facing disabled people and finding answers to the big issues facing them, alongside helping individuals. Our projects and partnerships deliver unique and lasting change and effective support that helps tens of thousands of disabled people in Bucks and across England.
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Covid infection levels in England have continued to fall. The Covid risk level remains Low, with 1 in every 2334 people in England now infected.
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Politicians of all political parties are talking about cutting ‘welfare’ (correctly known as social security) to pay for higher defence costs. BuDS has studied this issue and come up with another way to look at it.
This article is a ‘thought experiment’, not a detailed economic plan. While all the data used is from official Government sources, and the calculations (methodology) is sound, we are not trying to set out a detailed plan for Government. What we are doing is helping people understand the reality of a complicated situation, and to look at it in another way from that presented in the media.
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Covid infection levels in England have fallen to their lowest recorded level so far. We have reduced the Covid risk level, for the first time, to Low. 1 in every 2154 people in England are now infected.
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The Supreme Court has made a key decision about when people legally can be said to be ‘deprived of their liberty’. Deprivation of liberty means that a person isn’t free to do or go where they wish because an official body or law is stopping them. A person locked up in a prison is the most obvious example of someone deprived of their liberty. However, other examples might be disabled people held under the Mental Health Act, or a disabled person who lives in a locked care home.
BuDS wants disabled people to get fair, accurate and balanced information. Media coverage of this important court case is often misleading or incomplete, so we have written our own guide. We have used only legal sources to do so.
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Covid infection levels in England have stayed at historically lower levels for a further week. The risk level remains Moderately Low, with 1 in every 1829 people in England infected. As we approach the mid-point of 2026, Covid infection levels in England have remained historically lower for the whole of the year so far.
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Covid infection levels in England have remained at historically lower levels. The risk level remains Moderately Low, with 1 in every 1647 people in England infected. There is no sign in any of the data of an imminent increase in Covid infection levels.
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Covid infection levels in England have fallen back to historically lower levels. The slight rise seen two weeks ago has subsided. The risk level remains Moderately Low, with 1 in every 1422 people in England infected.
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Lobbyists and a few MPs are saying that they want to introduce another Assisted Dying or Assisted Suicide Bill into Parliament, despite the failure of the last Bill. BuDS and other disabled-led organisations oppose this. Read on for more information.
Lobbying organisations who want to legalise medically-assisted suicide, and a few MPs who support them, have said that they want to introduce another Assisted Dying or Assisted Suicide Bill into the next session of Parliament.
Parliament sessions are rather like school terms. Most Bills which do not become law in one session fall, or cease to exist, at the end of that session. This is what happened to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, the Private Members Bill (PMB) introduced in the last session of Parliament by Kim Leadbeater MP.
The current session of Parliament began on 13 May 2026. The Government did not announce in the King’s Speech that they would be introducing a Government bill to introduce assisted suicide in this session, so that seems to be ruled out. However, if an MP who wins the ballot to introduce a Private Members Bill in this session choose to introduce a bill about assisted suicide, the whole cycle could begin again.
The ballot for MPs to win the opportunity to introduce a PMB will be held on 21 May 2026. Between 450 to 500 MPS are eligible for the ballot and there are only 20 places, of which realistically only the top five have a good chance of getting a Bill through to law. So, MPs have around a 1 in 95 chance of being picked and then getting a Bill through.
29 MPs have said that they will introduce an assisted suicide bill if they are successful in the ballot. This means that there is about a 1 in 4 chance that one of the top five MPs in the Private Member’s Bill ballot will be an MP who has said they will introduce a new assisted suicide bill. However, of course, we cannot be sure that, even if picked, those MPs will follow-through on their promise. A lot has happened since February 2026, not least the local council elections and the current Labour leadership campaign.
BuDS, and other disabled-led organisations, are very firmly of the opinion that another assisted dying or assisted suicide Bill is NOT needed. We say this for seven main reasons:
Reliable polling by Statistica and More in Common about the issues most important to British people shows that the top ten issues are: the economy, immigration, health & the NHS, defence & national security, taxation, housing, crime, environment/climate, education, and the cost of living. Legalising assisted dying or assisted suicide is not identified by any poll as an important issue for the British public. When asked directly if assisted dying is an important issue for the country at the moment, 96% of people told a More in Common poll that it was not.
Assisted dying is a hugely complex, difficult and complex issue. The Prime Minister and Government put a huge amount of time, money and effort into supporting Kim Leadbeater’s former Bill, but failed to produce a workable piece of legislation which professionals said they could work with and which had broad popular support. The next Bill will face the same problems, complexities and resistance as the first Bill, using up Ministerial time, officials’ time and a huge amount of Parliamentary time.
If politicians pursue a subject like assisted suicide which the vast majority of people don’t think is important, it will look like they are wasting their time, and Parliament’s time, on a ‘hobby-horse issue’ which only lobbyists and die-hard supporters care about. With so many huge and important issues facing the country, politicians risk being seen as out of touch and uninterested in the issues which face ordinary people.
The lobbyists backing assisted suicide have said incessantly that ‘the House of Commons backed Kim Leadbeater’s Bill’, that it has ‘democratic legitimacy’, and that the House of Lords should yield to the views of the elected Commons.
All these claims are false. The reality, which the lobbyists refuse to admit, is that a minority of MPs voted for Kim Leadbeater’s Bill at Third Reading in the Commons, the last Commons vote held. A majority of MPs in the Commons is 326, but only 314 voted for the Bill. This means that Kim Leadbeater’s Bill cannot be said to have the backing of the House of Commons, only of a minority of MPs.
Furthermore, Kim Leadbeater’s Bill was passed by the Commons at Third Reading by a majority of only 12 MPs. It cannot be said to have ‘democratic legitimacy’ on such a close minority vote. It is worth remembering that the Assisted Suicide Bill introduced into the Scottish Parliament was roundly rejected by MSPs.
Support in Parliament for assisted dying or suicide, as measured by votes, signatures of motions, and positive speeches, has fallen significantly since 2024. Months of debating and the testimony of experts has perhaps shown MPs that the subject is far more difficult, complex and controversial than it first appeared. The loud slogans of the lobbyists (who have spent around £5 million on adverts, public relations and campaigns) have been proven empty and simplistic.
Another assisted suicide bill therefore will struggle to make progress in Parliament. Kim Leadbeater’s Bill benefited from the strong personal support of the Prime Minister, Kier Starmer, who made support for the Bill something of a loyalty issue for Labour backbenchers. The Government also gave official support to the Bill and, through the Whips, helped it through the House with considerable extra time. A future Bill is unlikely to enjoy these privileges, even if Mr Starmer remains as PM.
Assisted dying or suicide is an issue about which many people have strong views. It is an issue which divides opinion. The evidence from Kim Leadbeater’s Bill is that assisted suicide, especially a scheme which legalises the medical euthanasia of NHS patients, fiercely divided and polarised Parliament and political parties, especially the Labour party. Another Bill will reignite all the arguments, debates and disagreements of the past.
Many days of Parliamentary time, and many hours of media coverage, will be dominated by political disagreement and conflict on a matter of policy which the public has clearly said is not important to them. Parliament has much more important causes on which to spend its limited time and energy.
At a time when there are huge critical issues which do divide the country, when people are looking to politicians and politics for leadership and unity in the national interest, it would be appallingly bad optics for Westminster to spend days and weeks quarrelling over assisted suicide for NHS patients, a policy which has never appeared on any party manifesto or featured in an election campaign.
Kim Leadbeater’s Bill when first introduced into the Commons in November 2024 set out a scheme where High Court judges, sitting with experts, would individually scrutinise and approve a tiny number of assisted suicides. When the Bill went into Commons Committee, this entire scheme was swept away and another scheme was set out in the Bill, where vaguely defined ‘expert panels’ would check only whether the right procedure had been followed in assisted suicides. By the time the Bill got to the Lords, the scheme had become a full-blown medically-assisted suicide service for thousands of people, provided by the NHS for NHS patients and part of the NHS bureaucracy.
Here’s a table showing what various organisations thought about the Bill:
| Organisation | Opinion |
| Royal College of Psychiatrists | “cannot support this bill” |
| Royal College of Physicians | “not in line with good clinical … practice.” |
| Disability Rights UK | “one of the most damaging pieces of legislation in recent times” |
| British Geriatrics Society | “It does not include adequate safeguards” |
| MIND | “It’s really clear the safeguards … are not adequate” |
| BEAT and other eating disorders groups | “people with eating disorders … are at grave risk” |
| Liberty | “For the law to protect everyone, it needs to be fixed and certain-but this Bill is anything but” |
| Prof Sir Louis Appleby, Government suicide prevention adviser | “very dangerous” |
| Lords Delegated Powers Committee | “insufficient detail … for proper Parliamentary Committee scrutiny” |
| Standing Together Against Domestic Abuse | Are the safeguards adequate? “No”. |
| National Down Syndrome Policy Group | “Should we be helping you to be less of a burden to the state?’ That is what it looks like to a lot of people with Down syndrome.” |
| King’s College London’s Complex Life and Death Decisions Group | “not fit for purpose” |
| Sir James Munby, former president of family division of the High Court | “lamentably short of providing adequate safeguards” |
| Association for Palliative Medicine | “The APM opposes any change in the law … 84.3% [of members] oppose a change in the law.” |
| Gold Standards Framework Centre | “lack of effective safeguards” |
| Simon Stevens, ex-NHS CEO | “Evident and substantial risk” |
| British Association of Social Workers | [Asked about the safeguards:] “Not enough” |
| OSJCT (Britain’s 2nd biggest not-for-profit care provider) | “Risks to older, vulnerable people … are substantial” |
| Table source: Dan Hitchins | |
Any future Bill would have to put forward either one of the three former plans, all of which have been demonstrated to be unworkable, or come up with a fourth option created in the last few weeks, without any public or expert consultation. Such a fourth plan would be as doomed as the other three.
Before a Bill is given Royal Assent, a Secretary of State on behalf of the Government must formally certify that it meets the UK’s human rights obligations under common law, the Human Rights Act, and the European Convention on Human Rights. While neither the Westminster nor Holyrood Bills reached that stage, a similar assisted suicide Bill did pass through the Tynwald, the Isle of Man’s tiny Parliament. However, the Lord Chancellor was unable to certify that the Bill met basic human rights requirements. Given the similarity of the Bills, that decision means that the Westminster and Holyrood Bills would also fail to meet human rights requirements. A complete redraft by highly skilled lawyers would be needed.
Every single disabled-led organisation in the UK, representing millions of disabled people, has rejected the Westminster and Holyrood Bills. Disabled people have vehemently protested about the Bills, and disabled MPs and Peers inside Parliament have led the resistance to them. The opinions of disabled people matter. Only disabled people are eligible for euthanasia. The lives of disabled people are most affected by any assisted dying or assisted suicide bill. Any scheme brought forward should command the confidence and support of disabled people as a first, basic, quality measure.
Yet disabled people and their organisations have not even been consulted. Bringing another Bill back without any attempt to address the real concerns of disabled people looks like another attack on disabled people, and brings the Government and Parliament into disrepute.
As a society, Britain has worked for many decades to prevent suicide. Changing the law so that people can encourage and support people to take their own life is a huge change in culture and attitude. That change, and its implications, needs to be properly explored and discussed before any legislation is introduced, if that’s even necessary.
BuDS has long called for a national conversation on assisted suicide, led by a Royal Commission, Select Committee enquiry or similar. Proper research can be commissioned to establish the need, if any, for assisted suicide. Doctors and other professionals can be properly consulted. The public can learn more about the various options and reach an informed view for themselves. Then, at the conclusion of this national conversation, the Government can decide whether to legislate to change the law, in full knowledge of the ideas and options which are safe and command support, and those which do not.
It is futile, time-wasting and divisive to keep allowing single-issue lobby groups, and their celebrity supporters, to keep hijacking Parliament with emotional, unworkable and dangerous Bills. Dying people deserve a grown-up, mature conversation and measured response.
