- The national disability charity is transforming its approach to service delivery, influencing change and working alongside disabled people with complex needs.
- The charity’s new strategy – based on input from 3,000 people connected to Sense – is the first delivered under the new leadership of chief executive James Watson-O’Neill.
- National disability charity Sense has launched a new three-year plan to help break down barriers faced by disabled people with complex needs.
The plan, ‘Transforming Sense, together (2026 – 2029), sets out how the organisation will strengthen its services, grow its influence and invest in its people and systems to support more disabled people to be in control, included and independent.
Sense supports disabled people with complex needs across England, Northern Ireland and Wales. Having celebrated its 70th anniversary last year, and with more than 5,000 employees and volunteers, the charity brings decades of experience delivering specialist, personalised support at every stage of life, and is a provider of care, education and community services across local areas and a leading force in disability campaigning.
Sense’s previous strategy saw the charity grow its specialist support services across the UK, including opening a new hub in Belfast and expanding its hubs across England and Wales. The new plan reflects the charity’s ambition to strengthen its services, while driving wider societal change to benefit people beyond its care. Key focus areas include:
- Leading with lived experience – Sense will expand its work alongside disabled people with complex needs to shape the organisation’s work. Co-production will be embedded across the charity, from designing services to influencing policy and campaigns. Sense will also recruit more disabled leaders and establish new advisory groups to help guide decision-making.
- Strengthening Sense’s services – Sense will modernise the way it delivers support. Sense will be investing in moving all of its services to digital systems, improving care records and ensuring services are evidence-led and financially sustainable. The charity will be modernising its services including expanding supported living, giving disabled people with complex needs greater choice, control and independence.
- Driving social change – Sense will strengthen its campaigning and influencing work so the voices of disabled people with complex needs are heard. The charity aims to build a movement that challenges negative attitudes, shift power and push for lasting change.
- Investing in people, systems and processes – the charity will invest in its workforce, including by improving pay and progression, strengthening learning and governance, and embedding a new organisation-wide approach to equity, diversity and inclusion.
‘Transforming Sense, together (2026 – 2029)’ sets out how Sense will deliver the first three years of its strategy, and is the first business plan the charity has delivered under the leadership of chief executive James Watson-O’Neill, who took up his post in February 2025. The strategy was shaped by the voices of 3,000 people connected to Sense, through a series of workshops, listening groups, one-to-one consultations, surveys and research with people with lived experience. This includes the charity’s Experts by Experience and Sense User Reference Group – two groups that enable people living in Sense services to shape the charity’s work.
Sense’s plan sets out a renewed focus on financially sustainability so that every pound goes where it matters most: towards breaking down barriers alongside disabled people with complex needs and their families. As part of this, the difficult decision was made to close four operational programmes, including holidays, in January 2026. These services made a real difference to people’s lives over many years but with the cost of delivering high-quality support continuing to rise and fewer funding opportunities available, it was no longer financially possible for the charity to run them.
Sense will continue to manage its operational income and expenditure closely. Other key components in the plan include the design and approval of a new fundraising strategy in year one, refocusing the charity’s retail function to grow reliable income, and building its commercial and procurement capability to secure better fees and sustainable growth.
James Watson-O’Neill, chief executive of Sense, said:
“For over 70 years, Sense has broken down barriers alongside disabled people with complex needs and their families. We are incredibly proud of the life-changing support we provide but disabled people with complex needs told us clearly that too many barriers still shape their daily lives, and that they are exhausted having to fight for the basic support, understanding and opportunities they deserve.
“Our plan is rooted in those voices and experiences. It is about taking everything Sense already does so well and building on it: using our frontline expertise to challenge systems, drive change and ensure disabled people with complex needs are centred in every decision we make. We want to do more than deliver outstanding services. We want to help build a world that works better for disabled people with complex needs in every part of life.
“Our services already show what is possible through personalised, creative support that helps people live gloriously ordinary lives. Now we want to go further still, helping reshape what fantastic care and support can and should look like when disabled people’s ambitions, choices and futures are truly at the heart of everything we do.
“By 2029, more disabled people will be working, leading and volunteering at Sense and playing a bigger role in shaping our future. Together with disabled people with complex needs, we are building a stronger and more influential organisation that helps create a world without limits. I’m so excited about what we’re doing at Sense – come and join us.”
You can find out more about Sense’s new plan here: https://www.sense.org.uk/about-us/our-plan-2026-2029/
