ABSTRACT
The year 2010 saw the tenth anniversary of the United Kingdom Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA), and recently the announcement and publication of the Coalition Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) 2 in autumn 2010. This has been widely criticised by socio-economic analysts, 3 disability groups 4 and research organisations 5 alike, including the Institute for Fiscal Studies, 6 for cutting health and social welfare spending to a point not seen since the Second World War, where it disproportionately impacts on those at the bottom end of the income distribution, especially older and/ or disabled people, including those who have progressive, life-threatening illnesses.
