Another Cost of Living payment of £150 will be made during June and July, if you receive certain disability benefits. Read on to find out more.
Articles in News
Articles in Cost of Living
- Covid-19 Risk Assessment: Week Ending 17 May 2026
- Another Assisted Dying Bill?
- Hantavirus Outbreak
- Covid-19 Risk Assessment: Week Ending 10 May 2026
- English Council Elections 2026 – A Different Perspective
- Carers Bucks Gives Up Bucks Council Contract
- Covid-19 Risk Assessment: Week Ending 03 May 2026
- What’s Causing the Rise in Cancer?
- Covid-19 Risk Assessment: Week Ending 26 April 2026
- BuDS Welcomes Failure of Assisted Suicide Bill
- Bird Flu
- BucksWorkability
- BuDDies
- Card Only Payments
- Comms and Social Media
- Covid-19
- Enquiries
- Fair4All Attitudes and Hate Crimes
- Fair4All Card
- Fair4All Education
- Fair4All Events
- Fair4All Public Spaces
- Fair4All Services
- Fair4All Visitors
- Neurodiversity and Learning Disability
- Offers and Discounts
- Reach4Work
Card Only Payments May Discriminate Against Disabled People
Since the beginning of the Covid 19 pandemic, many shops, services, and businesses have started accepting only debit or credit card payments. This was originally done to reduce the small risk of passing on the virus by handling coins and notes.
However, many businesses quickly realised that not accepting cash has other advantages for them, such as cutting staff time, reducing theft risks, and reducing bank charges. For this reason, many shops and businesses have decided to stay ‘card only’ and not accept cash payments.
However, only accepting card payments may be discriminating against some disabled people who are unable to use cards because of their disability.
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Covid-19 Risk Assessment: Week Ending 22 May 2023
The risk of meeting a Covid-infected person in your everyday life this week remains Extremely High. Around 1 in every 40 people in Bucks have Covid.
As an example of the risk of catching Covid, a typical busy supermarket will have between 6 and 10 infected people breathing out virus which you could catch.
We are now in a period of higher Covid infection levels. It is too early to say whether we will see a further increase next week, or whether levels will begin to decline again. Because of this uncertainty, we may be underestimating the current risk.
BuDS continues to recommend that disabled and clinically vulnerable people avoid indoor spaces unless they are wearing a filter mask (FFP2/3). For more advice on how to avoid catching Covid, use this link.
This data is based on the Zoe Health Study for Covid-19, adjusted to take account of its limited coverage. To learn more about this, use this link.
For more Covid information and help, please contact BuDS and we will be happy to help.
Covid-19 Risk Assessment: Week Ending 15 May 2023
The risk of meeting a Covid-infected person in your everyday life this week has risen to Extremely High. Around 1 in every 41 people in Bucks have Covid.
As an example of the risk of catching Covid, a typical busy supermarket will have between 6 and 10 infected people breathing out virus which you could catch.
We are now leaving the trough between Covid waves, and infection levels are beginning to rise again. The risk of meeting an infected person in your everyday life will increase over the next few weeks.
BuDS continues to recommend that disabled and clinically vulnerable people avoid indoor spaces unless they are wearing a filter mask (FFP2/3). For more advice on how to avoid catching Covid, use this link.
This data is based on the Zoe Health Study for Covid-19, adjusted to take account of its limited coverage. To learn more about this, use this link.
For more Covid information and help, please contact BuDS and we will be happy to help.
BuDS Policy Position on Euthanasia & Assisted Dying
BuDS has compassion for people suffering at the end of life and wants everyone to be able to experience a peaceful and dignified death. We recognise the spectrum of strong views held about the issue of ‘Assisted Dying’ or ‘Assisted Suicide’.
As a community of disabled people, BuDS strongly holds that the lives and wellbeing of disabled people are of equal value to that of non-disabled people. BuDS exists to uphold and defend the interests of disabled people. ‘Assisted Dying’ significantly affects the interests of disabled people, especially now that an Assisted Dying Bill is before the Commons, and BuDS therefore needs to engage with the issue and have a policy position on it.
If you would like to jump straight to our policy position, you can do so using the menu below.
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Help in a Mental Health Crisis
If you are in a mental health crisis, there are many organisations you can contact for help. BuDS has compiled a list of them, and their contact details. If you want to shortcut to a specific organisation, use the menu below. For each organisation, there is contact details and, where available, their website, as well as a brief description of their work.
Covid-19 Risk Assessment: Week Ending 8 May 2023
The risk of meeting a Covid-infected person in your everyday life this week remains Very High. At least 1 in every 59 people in Bucks have Covid.
As an example of the risk of catching Covid, a typical busy supermarket will have between 5 and 9 infected people breathing out virus which you could catch.
We are still in the trough between Covid waves. There are very early signs of an increase in the number of infected people. Very tentatively, we could see cases starting to increase over the next two to three weeks (to the end of May), and potentially a new peak of infections in June.
This ‘next wave’ may be driven by sub-variants of the XBB Covid variant, or by older variants for which people have lost their temporary immunity, or a mixture of both.
BuDS continues to recommend that disabled and clinically vulnerable people avoid indoor spaces unless they are wearing a filter mask (FFP2/3). For more advice on how to avoid catching Covid, use this link.
For more Covid information and help, please contact BuDS and we will be happy to help.
This article was edited on 9 May to take into account the late publication of the Zoe Covid Study data.
Moving Through Key Educational Transitions as a Disabled Young Person: The Education Workstream of the SEND Transitions Service
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.
The SEND Transitions Service is made up of workstreams from a number of BuDS projects, principally Fair4All Education and Reach4Work. This page explains the Education workstream, which is within the BuDS Fair4All Education project.
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The March & April 2023 Covid Wave In Bucks
Since the ONS Infection Survey was cancelled in early March 2023, there has been no fully reliable way to work out how many people in Bucks have Covid. However, BuDS has been able to use the Zoe Covid Study data to calculate a likely number of infections since the ONS Survey ended. This article explains the March and April 2023 Covid wave in Bucks, based on BuDS’ calculations.
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Covid-19 Risk Assessment: Week Ending 1 May 2023
The risk of meeting a Covid-infected person in your everyday life this week remains Very High. Around 1 in every 56 people in Bucks have Covid.
As an example of the risk of catching Covid, a typical busy supermarket will have between 6 and 11 infected people breathing out virus which you could catch.
We are now in the trough between Covid waves, and infection levels are probably as low as they are going to get. The next Covid wave will start to build soon.
BuDS continues to recommend that disabled and clinically vulnerable people avoid indoor spaces unless they are wearing a filter mask (FFP2/3). For more advice on how to avoid catching Covid, use this link.
This data is based on the Zoe Health Study for Covid-19, adjusted to take account of its limited coverage. To learn more about this, use this link.
For more Covid information and help, please contact BuDS and we will be happy to help.