A has significant paralysis, following a brain haemorrhage and a subsequent stroke, has epilepsy and visual impairment. She has received 24-hour care for more than a decade. Her care package is now to be cut to three hour-long visits a day, and she has been told she cannot start Direct Payments to arrange her own care for another three months because of a backlog. As a result, she faces losing the two workers with whom she has built an excellent relationship, and sitting on incontinence pads during the day and all night. Her medication requires her to drink a lot of water, making it especially uncomfortable to have pads changed only three times a day, as well as risking infection. This is the same amount of care she received when she first left hospital and it was, she says “horrendous. I was run-down. I wasn’t eating properly. I lost my communication skills. Having 24-hour care has helped me no end. I know I have improved healthwise.”