Making the ends meet: do carers and disabled people have a common agenda?

English Community care policy has, simultaneously, attempted to reduce institutional care, contain costs, and emphasise individual and family responsibility for personal welfare. As a result, disabled people often have no choice about relying on informal carers for the support that enables them to live in their own homes. The implications of New Labour’s emphasis on “work for those who can, security for those who can’t” and of third way emphasis on obligations are explored for carers and disabled people. Both stand to lose from these emphases. Joint campaigning, informed by a common theoretical model, may have more to offer than separatism.