Roy Curtis: Autistic man killed himself six days after latest ‘fitness for work’ demand
A disabled man took his own life six days after being told to attend a “fitness for work” assessment, despite the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) being repeatedly warned its actions had made him suicidal, an inquest has heard.
The death of 27-year-old Roy Curtis, who died on or about 18 November 2018, is just the latest over the last decade to expose DWP’s failure to protect disabled benefit claimants from harm.
The DWP actions that contributed to his suicide particularly mirror those that led to the death of Errol Graham, who starved to death earlier the same year after his benefits had been removed.
Just as with Errol Graham, the body of Roy Curtis – who was autistic and had significant experience of mental distress – was only discovered when a bailiff arrived to evict him from his flat, months after his benefits had been removed.
Curtis’s body was not discovered until seven months after his employment and support allowance (ESA) and other linked benefits had been stopped and nine months after he died.
Both Roy Curtis and Errol Graham had their benefits stopped after failing to attend a face-to-face work capability assessment (WCA), and without DWP speaking to them before ending their claim.
And both men had spent time as inpatients in mental health units, information which had been passed to DWP.
In another echo of Graham’s death, DWP stopped Curtis’s ESA in January 2019 after making two unsuccessful visits to his home to ask why he had not attended a face-to-face WCA.
On both occasions, the DWP officer noticed that letters alerting Curtis to the visits were still in the mailbox along with other post, according to a safeguarding adults review into his death that was published by the Milton Keynes Together Partnership (PDF) last week.
His housing association and the local social services department also attempted to contact Curtis (see separate story), but they and DWP did not communicate with each other.
The decision to ask Curtis to attend a face-to-face assessment, and then to remove his benefits when he failed to attend, was taken even though DWP had years of evidence of the impact of the WCA process on his mental health.
The safeguarding adults review said DWP had admitted that the letter telling Curtis he needed to attend the WCA had been generated by its computer system “without a person checking on the circumstances of the individual”.
DWP apparently made no further effort from January 2019 to check on his welfare or to contact other agencies, despite his history of mental distress and suicidal ideation. By then he had been dead for two months.
Representatives of Curtis’s housing association landlord, GP surgery, mental health trust and social services department were all questioned at length at this week’s inquest in Milton Keynes.
But despite repeated references by witnesses to the impact on his mental health of the loss of his benefits and the anxiety he experienced at the thought of having to work, and the apparent acceptance that being forced back into the WCA process triggered his suicide, no-one from DWP gave evidence to the inquest this week.
The inquest heard that DWP and its contractors had been told repeatedly of the harm that the “fitness for work” process caused to Curtis’s mental health.
In March 2017, Curtis had handed over a letter from his partner at a WCA, which stated that the assessment process and the thought of having to prepare for work caused him to have “suicidal thoughts”.
That letter warned DWP that Curtis was “not only an unsuitable person for any work environment but would be severely endangered by any finding that he was suitable for work or any work-related activities” and that “any such finding would put him at an immediate threat of suicide”.
Despite that letter, he was placed in the ESA work-related activity group, and the following year, on 15 August 2018, he was told his ESA was being removed completely because he had failed to turn up to a WCA in April 2018.
Curtis then drew up a lengthy suicide note in which he said he would end his own life on 19 September because DWP had decided to terminate his benefits, which meant he was “no longer able to pay rent or afford to eat”.
He said in that document: “I cannot be bothered to fight this anymore. I am out of energy. I only exist to do what I want to do; dealing with paperwork, making phone calls, and feeling anxious every day about whether I am going to be homeless are things I do not want to do.”
Before he could take his own life, police were alerted by an online friend and he was eventually admitted as a voluntary inpatient to the Campbell Centre, a mental health unit in Milton Keynes, on 13 September.
While he was an inpatient, a mental health support worker took on his benefit case and wrote to DWP asking for the decision to be reviewed, including a letter from a consultant psychiatrist explaining that the thought of work made Curtis feel suicidal.
His benefits were reinstated and backdated the following day, 5 October, and he was discharged from the Campbell Centre the same day.
But just a few days later he received another DWP letter, telling him he had been placed back in the ESA work-related activity group and would need to attend regular appointments.
He told a mental health professional from the acute home treatment team (AHTT) that work “made him stressed and anxious” and that he would rather die than have to work.
A month later, on 12 November, Curtis was sent a letter by DWP telling him he needed to attend another WCA, on 3 December.
Dr David Marchevsky, the consultant who had been in charge of his care at the Campbell Centre and had helped to have his benefits reinstated, told the inquest: “I didn’t envisage that the [DWP] were going to do the same thing and they were going to do it so quickly after the discharge.
“They were told the reasons he had been admitted. That information was given to them.
“I had no idea that was going to happen.”
The AHTT told Curtis to see his GP, who agreed on 15 November to write a letter to explain to DWP that he needed a home assessment, because he was worried that visiting the city centre assessment centre for the WCA would set off a severe anxiety attack.
Tom Osborne, the senior coroner for Milton Keynes, said there was no evidence that he ever collected the letter from the surgery.
Dr Romi Babatunde, a partner at the surgery, told the inquest: “He identified his main trigger as the benefits and the expectation that he should work and that he should look for work.”
Osborne told the inquest that the letter he received from DWP in November “obviously caused Roy considerable anxiety and distress”.
The coroner said he believed that Curtis took his own life three days after the GP appointment, on or about 18 November 2018.
The housing association eventually issued an eviction notice in April 2019.
His body was discovered on 21 August 2019 when a bailiff arrived at his flat to evict him.
The inquest heard that a police officer who attended the scene had found a folder of letters with red letters scrawled across them, as if Curtis was “distressed” that his benefits had been stopped.
By the time his body was discovered, Roy Curtis had been dead for more than nine months.
Osborne concluded that he had taken his own life on or about 18 November 2018 and that it was “an indictment on all of us as a society in Milton Keynes that his body lay there undetected for so many months”.
Curtis had cut himself off from his family in 2013 and changed his name from Ayman Habayeb. His family spent years trying unsuccessfully to track him down.
Osborne told his family this week that he “deserves to be remembered for more than just the way that he died”.
The safeguarding adults review suggests that DWP’s safeguarding procedures have been improved since Curtis’s death.
Disability News Service reported in July how DWP had made changes that appear to have been influenced by the publicity in January and February this year surrounding Errol Graham’s death.
This appears to be confirmed by the safeguarding review, which says it was told: “Where DWP is unable to make contact with an individual after two ineffective safeguarding visits, additional checks will be put in place.
“The claim will not be automatically closed but escalated to a senior safeguarding lead who will liaise with the NHS, police and adult social care.
“Under the new guidance, ending benefit entitlement will become the last resort.”
DWP refused to comment on the circumstances of Roy Curtis’s death this week, and refused to say how it defended its actions, and whether it would be apologising to the family.
But a DWP spokesperson said: “Our thoughts remain with Mr Curtis’ family and friends at this difficult time.”
*The following organisations are among those that could be able to offer support if you have been affected by the issues raised in this article: Samaritans, Papyrus, Mind and Rethink
3 December 2020
Roy Curtis: Autistic man killed himself as council waited two months to begin ‘urgent assessment’
A coroner has criticised a local authority that waited more than two months to begin an “urgent” assessment of the support needs of a disabled man, who had taken his own life by the time the council eventually attempted to contact him.
Milton Keynes Council was told at an inquest yesterday (Wednesday) that it needed to make urgent changes to its social services department to ensure that no further lives were lost, following the suicide of Roy Curtis in November 2018.
His body was only discovered nine months later, in August 2019, when a bailiff arrived to evict him from his housing association flat for non-payment of rent.
Tom Osborne, the senior coroner for Milton Keynes, was also critical of other public bodies, and the failure of those organisations to work together to plan his care before he was discharged from an inpatient mental health unit in October 2018.
The inquest heard repeated evidence over two days of how several agencies had failed Roy Curtis in the weeks and months leading to his suicide, including the council and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
The inquest heard that he had taken his own life after being told by DWP to attend a “fitness for work” assessment, just weeks after receiving treatment for suicidal thoughts caused by having his benefits removed for missing another face-to-face work capability assessment (WCA) earlier that year (see separate story).
The inquest heard this week that Milton Keynes Council’s social services department had waited more than two months to attempt to contact Curtis to begin an “urgent” assessment of his social care needs.
Osborne told the inquest yesterday (Wednesday) that the failure to complete the social care assessment “resulted in a lost opportunity to assess his needs and to offer him support”.
That assessment should have been carried out while he was still a voluntary inpatient at the Campbell Centre, a mental health unit in Milton Keynes, said Osborne.
Curtis was discharged on 5 October 2018 from the Campbell Centre into the care of the acute home treatment team, also part of Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWLFT), and soon afterwards into the care of The Grove Surgery, Netherfield, Milton Keynes.
But Osborne criticised the failure to carry out “effective multi-agency joint planning” before his discharge from the centre, and to carry out an adequate risk assessment.
The council’s mental health and autism social care team had received a request for an urgent social care assessment on 25 September – a request that had first been drawn up by a social worker on 13 September, the day he was admitted to the Campbell Centre – but it was only allocated by the council to an assistant social worker, and not until 26 November.
By this time, the coroner concluded, Curtis had already taken his own life.
Sarah Nickson, service manager for the council’s mental health and autism social care team, said the delay in allocating the case had been “completely unacceptable”, but that there had been “a high number of referrals that were awaiting allocation and our team was not fully staffed at that time”.
It was not until 3 December 2018 that the assistant social worker made the first attempt to reach Curtis, but only through letters and phone calls – which it later emerged were to the wrong number.
No visits were made to his flat, and one of the letters warned that if he failed to make contact by the end of the month, his case would be closed.
The case was eventually closed in January 2019 without a single visit being made to his flat.
Nickson accepted that there should have been at least a couple of visits to his flat, followed by a request to the police to check on his welfare.
Curtis had cut himself off from his family in 2013 and changed his name from Ayman Habayeb. His family had tried unsuccessfully for many years to track him down.
At the end of the inquest, Osborne read a statement issued by Curtis’s family, in which they blamed the council for his death.
The inquest heard that DWP had been told repeatedly about the impact that its fitness for work system had on Curtis’s mental health, and it knew that he had only recently been discharged from the Campbell Centre.
He had been admitted voluntarily to the centre in September 2018 after the police were alerted by a friend to a letter Curtis had posted online describing his plans to take his own life.
Dr David Marchevsky, the consultant in charge of his care at the Campbell Centre between 13 September and 5 October 2018, described him as “very polite, well-mannered and very pleasant” and “very intelligent and likeable”, with a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome.
He had previously been admitted to the centre in 2012.
He said he had been “upset and angry” that he had lost his benefits, so Dr Marchevsky decided to “work to get the benefits back”.
Once his benefits were reinstated, he said, Curtis was no longer “actively suicidal”, and could be safely discharged.
But just a month later, Curtis was sent a letter by DWP telling him he needed to attend another WCA, on 3 December.
He attended The Grove for an appointment with a GP on 15 November 2018 to request a letter to send to DWP to explain why he needed a home assessment, because he was worried that visiting the city centre assessment centre for the WCA would set off a severe anxiety attack.
Osborne said there was no evidence that he ever collected the letter from the surgery.
He said he believed Curtis took his own life three days after the GP appointment, on or about 18 November.
Dr Romi Babatunde, a partner at the surgery, said there was “no mention” in the patient’s notes of any attempt by the GP at that appointment to assess whether Curtis was having any suicidal thoughts, or of whether he later collected the letter.
The inquest also heard that the surgery had failed to follow up on his care after his discharge from the acute home treatment team.
Asked by the family’s solicitor, Sefton Kwasnik, whether, “with the benefit of hindsight”, the surgery “could perhaps have been more pro-active” in managing his mental health following his release into the surgery’s care, such as preparing its own management plan, Dr Babatunde said: “Yes, with the benefit of hindsight that is correct.”
He added later: “Yes, perhaps we could pro-actively have done a bit more.”
Curtis’s father, who was watching the inquest online, told the GP: “You could have saved this young man’s life. I hope your conscience is clear. I cannot be calm like everybody else. This is my family.”
The inquest also heard that the Guinness Partnership, the housing association that owned the flat Curtis rented, had failed to check on his welfare for several months after he stopped paying his rent, even though he had previously been living in supported accommodation.
Billie-Jade Mason, customer liaison manager for the housing association, said they had not been aware Curtis was a “vulnerable adult”.
She later had to apologise to the inquest after being informed that the housing association had been told by the council that Curtis had previously lived in supported accommodation when he moved into his flat in January 2016.
DWP had stopped Curtis’s ESA in January 2019 after making two unsuccessful visits to his home that month to ask why he had not attended the WCA.
On both visits, the DWP officer noticed that letters alerting Curtis to the visit were still in the mailbox along with other mail, according to a safeguarding adults review into his death that was published by the Milton Keynes Together Partnership (PDF) last week.
Osborne said he found it “remarkable” that “the complete lack of any communication from or with Roy didn’t spark a red flag or alarm bells with any of the agencies”.
He said he intended to send a prevention of future deaths report to the council because of its failures.
He said: “Referrals for adult social care assessments appear to me to be overly bureaucratic and are not being afforded the priority within social services that they so obviously require.”
The housing association eventually issued Roy Curtis with an eviction notice in April 2019.
His body was discovered in the bedroom of his flat on 21 August 2019 by a bailiff who had arrived to evict him.
By the time his body was discovered, Roy Curtis had been dead for more than nine months.
Osborne concluded that he had taken his own life on or about 18 November 2018 and that it was “an indictment on all of us as a society in Milton Keynes that his body lay there undetected for so many months”.
And he told the family of Roy Curtis that he “deserves to be remembered for more than just the way that he died”.
*The following organisations are among those that could be able to offer support if you have been affected by the issues raised in this article: Samaritans, Papyrus, Mind and Rethink
3 December 2020
Vaccine priority decision ‘is campaigning victory’, but concerns remain
The government’s decision to put some people with impairments higher on the list of “priority groups” to receive a COVID-19 vaccine has been welcomed as a victory for disabled people’s campaigning.
This week, the government announced that the first vaccine – produced by Pfizer and BioNTech – had been authorised for use in the UK by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
Yesterday, ministers announced that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine would begin to be rolled out next week across the country, although large-scale vaccination is not expected until the new year.
But they also revealed that those considered clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) to the virus would now be higher up the list of priority groups than previously suggested.
Furious disabled activists had previously questioned the decision to put disabled people seen as CEV far down the queue for a life-saving vaccine, even though three-fifths of COVID-related deaths have been of disabled people.
Under the previous list of priorities, older people in care homes and care home workers were to be first to be vaccinated; followed by over-80s and other health and social care workers; then the over-75s; followed by those 70 and over; and those 65 and over.
Only then would adults under 65 who were at high risk from the virus receive the vaccine.
But the new list of priorities means that those who are considered CEV will receive the same priority for a vaccine as those aged between 70 and 75.
Those aged 16 to 64 with underlying health conditions that put them at higher risk from the virus will receive the vaccine after those aged 65 and over, and before those aged 60 to 64 with no such health conditions.
But there will currently be no increased priority for any disabled children and teenagers under the age of 16, even if they are considered to be CEV to the virus.
As the priority list stands, those under 16 who are CEV will have to wait until everyone 50 years of age and older has been vaccinated.
There are doubts over whether older care home residents will actually be treated as the highest priority for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, because the need to hold the vaccine at minus 70 degrees celsius means it will – at least initially – have to be distributed from hospitals.
The prime minister, Boris Johnson, told Labour leader Keir Starmer yesterday (Wednesday) that there were “logistical challenges to be overcome to get vulnerable people the access to the vaccine that they need”, after he was asked about “the particular problems of getting the vaccine safely and quickly into care homes”.
Baroness [Jane] Campbell, a crossbench disabled peer, who last week raised concerns about the previous priority list in the House of Lords, said she was “heartened” by the news that those defined as CEV would have a higher priority.
She said: “This change of heart came as a direct result of disabled people’s campaigning efforts to get the government to think again, after it was clearly bought to their attention that thousands of disabled people would most certainly die if they caught COVID-19 and should therefore be vaccinated at a higher priority.
“It’s a shame that disabled people had to mount such an exhausting campaign to get the government and its vaccine expert working groups to fully realise the extent of some disabled people’s extreme risk to the virus.
“Personally, I thought it was clearly evident. As did the British public, many of whom sent me tweets and emails of support for this campaign.”
Other disabled campaigners were more hesitant about welcoming the changes.
David Gillon said the new version of the priority list was an improvement, but only because of how it treats those in the CEV group.
He said: “This draft is better than the first one, but still seems to be allocating priorities on a finger in the wind basis.
“If there are hard numbers behind the low priority given to clinically vulnerable people and the even lower priority for clinically vulnerable under-16s, we’re still not being shown them.”
And he said there were still many anomalies with the priority list, including the failure to prioritise care homes for working-age adults.
Andrew Lee, director of People First (Self Advocacy), was last month among those raising concerns over “absolutely shocking” new figures from Public Health England which showed that younger people with learning difficulties in England were more than 30 times more likely to die from coronavirus than non-disabled people of the same age.
He welcomed the news of a vaccine and said: “This is something we’ve been talking about in our COVID-19 Support and Action group for self-advocates.”
But he added: “We are alarmed and angry about the high death rates of people with learning difficulties during the pandemic and the fact that they have not been widely spoken about.”
Lee said he and his colleagues were “encouraged” that adults with Down’s syndrome had been added to the CEV list and would now be at a higher level of priority for the vaccine.
But he added: “It is confusing to many of us, and somewhat discriminatory, to not include people with learning difficulties who do not have Down’s syndrome.”
At present the group of adults at higher risk from the virus – but not in the CEV group – includes those with “severe and profound learning disability”, but not others with learning difficulties.
Simone Aspis, director of Changing Perspectives, said the changes to the vaccine priority list were “not a substantial improvement”.
She said the Public Health England figures showed that people with learning difficulties should be “much higher up the list then they are at the moment”.
Aspis said the reason so many people with learning difficulties were dying from COVID-19 was not just because of underlying health conditions, but because “the support is not there to be tested or understand the lockdown regulations or to do the basic things like washing your hands… or make sense of social distancing”.
The grassroots disabled people’s organisation Bristol Reclaiming Independent Living (BRIL) said the news that care home residents now appeared to have moved down the priority list “due to the governments failing to plan how they would store and deliver the vaccine”, was “another unacceptable blow”.
It said the situation was also “not helped by frequent changes to the guidance”, with the definitions of “clinically vulnerable” and “underlying health conditions” varying and open to interpretation, while this was “particularly worrying for younger people with learning difficulties”.
A BRIL spokesperson said: “Will stressed GPs be forced to decide if someone qualifies as having a ‘severe or profound learning disability’ and can get the vaccination sooner, or that they will have to wait?”
He added: “There are concerns about already pressurised GPs being able to take on the responsibility for making sure people are contacted.
“With the best will in the world, there will be people not known to them who may be in the ‘clinically vulnerable’ groups, including people seeking asylum, travelling communities and homeless people.
“We have been contacted by disabled people raising very specific and important issues about reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act, and making sure that people, families and services are aware of the barriers people may face to being vaccinated.
“It is concerning that this knowledge and lived experience is missing from vaccination plans.”
3 December 2020
DWP refuses to publish information from secret reviews into benefit-related deaths
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is refusing to release recommendations made by its own secret reviews into the deaths of benefit claimants that have been linked to its actions.
The refusal to release the information from reports completed over the last 20 months is just the latest attempt by ministers to hide information that links the department with the deaths of disabled claimants of benefits such as employment and support allowance and personal independence payment.
The department has told Disability News Service (DNS), in a response to a freedom of information request, that it cannot release any information from internal process reviews (IPRs) completed between April 2019 and last month.
It appears to argue in the response that it is exempt from its duty to release the documents because every one of those documents is linked to the development of new government policy*.
But there will be suspicions that the refusal to release the documents is because DWP is anxious to avoid revealing any further evidence linking it with safeguarding failures that have led to the deaths of claimants.
DWP did reveal in its response that it completed 82 separate investigations into deaths and other serious incidents between January 2016 and March 2019.
The existence of secret DWP reviews into suicides and other deaths and serious incidents was first revealed by DNS in October 2014.
Most, although not all, of the reviews involve the deaths of claimants, while some examine serious incidents that did not lead to a claimant dying.
After DWP refused to release the reports in 2014, the information rights tribunal ruled in April 2016 that all information from the reviews that does not directly relate to the people who died should be released under the Freedom of Information Act.
The tribunal case had been brought by DNS, and the ruling led to redacted versions of the reports being published for the first time.
DWP had argued at the time that it was prevented from releasing the information by section 123 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992**.
That argument was squashed by the tribunal, which said the department could release some information from the reviews, as long as it did not relate to individual claimants.
This led to the release of 49 redacted documents which revealed how the secret reviews had led to recommendations for improvements by the department after the deaths of claimants.
DWP is now arguing that releasing any of the IPRs from the last 20 months could interfere with the development of policy, although it has released IPRs from the previous three years.
It said in the response: “There is a public interest in greater transparency which makes government more accountable to the electorate and increases trust.”
But it adds: “There is also a public interest in being able to assess the quality of advice being given to ministers and subsequent decision making.
“On balance, DWP is satisfied that in this instance the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure.”
DNS is seeking an internal review of the decision by DWP, but it is likely to have to appeal to the information commissioner.
A spokesperson for the Information Commissioner’s Office said: “You should raise your complaint with the DWP in the first instance and if you’re not happy with how the complaint is dealt with, we might be able to help.
“We wouldn’t comment beyond that at this stage on a particular request response.”
A DWP spokesperson declined to comment on the decision.
*Under section 35(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act
**This states that a civil servant is guilty of a criminal offence by disclosing “without lawful authority any information which he acquired in the course of his employment and which relates to a particular person”
3 December 2020
Government’s disability strategy ‘must be grounded in UN convention’
Disabled activists have called on the government to ensure that its long-awaited disability strategy produces stronger anti-discrimination legislation and is grounded in the social model of disability and the UN disability convention.
They were speaking at an event hosted by Labour’s shadow minister for disabled people, Vicky Foxcroft, that marked both UK Disability History Month (UKDHM) and today’s international day of disabled people.
Disabled campaigners from both within and outside the Labour movement said the government’s national disability strategy – now not expected to be published until next spring at the earliest – must be grounded in disabled people’s civil rights.
Nearly 200 people registered to attend the meeting.
But there were also messages for Labour, and its continuing failure to address the discrimination faced by its own disabled members.
Ellen Morrison, newly-elected as Labour’s first representative of its disabled members on its national executive committee, said the government’s strategy needed to be under-pinned by the social model of disability and ensure the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) was incorporated into UK law.
And she stressed that disabled people and their organisations, including the Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance, had already carried out “really detailed work that the government could take forward if it actually wanted to engage with us as experts in our lives”.
But she said that Labour also needed to “get its own house in order first”.
She said: “We are currently in a vicious circle in our party where disabled Labour members can’t access Labour spaces or some can and face discrimination and we don’t have our own structures embedded in the party to self-organise.”
Setting up disabled members’ branches at a local level could provide the network needed to secure consensus within the party on what disabled people need, she said.
She said there was also a need to ensure that disabled people have a proper say in policy-making within the party, while pointing out that the Disability Equality Act Labour organisation had already produced a blueprint for the changes needed within a party “that has historically shut us out”.
But Morrison warned that any government disability strategy was “likely to disappoint us”, so she called for Labour to produce its own shadow version.
Richard Rieser, coordinator of UKDHM, said the “fundamental” change needed in the government’s disability strategy was to move from seeing “disability as a problem in the person” to seeing it as an issue in society.
He said all the main political parties paid “lip service” to the social model of disability, and the way to change that was through “strengthening the disability movement”.
He said oppression was “deeply rooted in our society so that when anything goes wrong, such as the COVID crisis, the cracks appear and we are seen as life not worthy of life”, which had been seen in the government’s “eugenicist approach” during the pandemic.
He said the human rights values of UNCRPD needed to be “embedded throughout society”, and he called for Labour to “take a strong position on this”.
He said the annual UKDHM began in 2010 because those organisations backing it realised that the Conservative-led coalition would “roll back the little gains we had made under the previous years”.
He pointed out that the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) – which had its 25th anniversary last month – was described at the time as “a leaky sieve rather than as a civil rights act”.
He said it was clear that the Equality Act – which incorporated some, but not all, of the DDA and subsequent legal improvements to the original act – needed to be developed.
And he pointed out that, more than four years ago, a House of Lords committee had recommended 55 improvements to the impact of the Equality Act on disabled people, which Labour should now be considering.
Fazilet Hadi, head of policy for Disability Rights UK (DR UK), said it was vital that the strategy was not just a series of “incremental tweaks” or existing departmental policies that the government will “repackage as a disability strategy”.
She said: “I would like it to be something that moves us on to the next stage of our journey to becoming an inclusive society for disabled people where we truly belong.”
She said the pandemic had “shone a spotlight on the inequalities we still face as disabled people” and had given the government “some really obvious clues on what needs to change”.
She said a DR UK engagement exercise had produced a series of demands from disabled people, including stronger anti-discrimination legislation, funding for disabled people’s organisations (DPOs), proper co-production and engagement with disabled people, a new social care system that “truly gives us empowerment, choice, control and connection” and a social security system that “enables us to flourish rather than a punitive one”.
Svetlana Kotova, director of campaigns and justice at Inclusion London, said the disability strategy needed to produce “radical reform” and not just “tinker round the edges”.
She said there needed to be reforms that ensured the Equality Act “works for us, with the burden of enforcement shifted from us as disabled people to regulatory bodies and public bodies”.
She said there needed to be a social security system that “recognises the right to an adequate standard of living and does not subject us as disabled people to a punitive conditionality regime”.
Kotova also called for investment in DPOs, and “radical reform of mental health and mental capacity laws so that people who experience mental distress do not face serious human rights violations at the time when they need support the most”.
She backed the introduction of a National Independent Living Support Service and a legal right to independent living, rather than the current “oppressive, severely-underfunded system” which sees “a lot of money wasted on support in institutions where people are at greater risk of abuse and their life is at greater risk, as we have seen in the COVID pandemic”.
Marsha de Cordova, a disabled MP and Labour’s shadow women and equalities secretary, told the meeting: “What is needed is a human rights response and a human rights approach.
“The benchmark for this has to be the UNCRPD. The government are claiming to be doing a national disability strategy… to measure whether this is good enough is whether it is meeting the standards and requirements set out within the UNCRPD.
“I don’t hold out much hope and that is why Labour will have to lead the way on that.”
She said COVID-19 had “exposed and shone a light” on the injustices, inequalities and hostility disabled people have faced in the last few years.
3 December 2020
Labour apologises for inaccessible disability rights event
Labour has apologised after it admitted that a meeting held to mark the international day of disabled people was inaccessible to some disabled people.
The meeting was hosted by Labour’s shadow minister for disabled people, Vicky Foxcroft, and aimed to gather the views of disabled people on what the government’s forthcoming national disability strategy should include.
Although the online event included British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters, there were no subtitles, which are vital for many disabled people, including those with hearing impairments who do not use BSL.
Yesterday (Wednesday), Foxcroft apologised for the access failure and said she was working to ensure it “does not happen again”.
Only last month, Ellen Morrison, Labour’s first elected representative of its disabled members on its national ruling body, called on the party to address the years of discrimination faced by its disabled members.
She said then that it was “very clear that Labour has deprioritised what disabled members need for a long time for both policy and access”.
Morrison repeated that message at this week’s event, telling her party that it needed to “get its own house in order”, and warning: “We are currently in a vicious cycle in our party where disabled Labour members can’t access Labour spaces or some can and face discrimination and we don’t have our own structures embedded in the party to self-organise.”
She pointed out that the Disability Equality Act Labour group had already produced a blueprint for the changes needed within a party “that has historically shut us out”.
Disabled campaigner and party member Lisa Egan left the online meeting on Monday when she realised there were no subtitles and so she would be unable to take part.
She told Disability News Service (DNS) afterwards: “No point staying where you’re not welcome.”
She said the failure to organise subtitles was “a very strong statement about who is and isn’t welcome”.
She had stated her need for subtitles on an access form she filled in before the event.
Foxcroft told DNS: “We really tried to make the event as accessible as possible, from asking attendees to let us know if they needed any adjustments, to having BSL interpreters at the event.
“In future, we will ensure all events are recorded and [uploaded] online shortly afterwards so people who are not able to take part can watch and contact me with any thoughts.”
She said she was keen to hear from anyone who was not able to engage in the event, and that “if even one person is not able to take part, that is one too many”.
She added: “I genuinely hope this doesn’t put anyone off accessing future events; we are planning on holding more on what a new deal for disabled people should look like.
“Ensuring disabled people’s voices are heard and holding the government to account on their future strategy is imperative.
“As shadow minister for disabled people, working with and co-producing policy with disabled people is the only way we can develop better policies to ensure we have a genuinely inclusive society.”
3 December 2020
Disabled advisors secure pledge from equality watchdog over DWP deaths inquiry
Disabled advisors to the equality and human rights watchdog have secured a promise that its planned inquiry into the work capability assessment (WCA) and its links with the deaths of benefit claimants is still a priority.
The promise came after the commission decided earlier this year to delay and “deprioritise” the inquiry because of the extra workload caused by the pandemic.
Disability News Service (DNS) has been told that members of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s disability advisory committee (DAC) secured a promise from the commission that the delay was not a “reduction in priority” for the inquiry, despite it being taken out of this year’s business plan.
EHRC has also agreed that the advisory committee will have input into the commission’s work to design the scope of the inquiry.
DNS only discovered the promise after the publication of minutes of a meeting of the committee that took place on 16 July.
Senior commission executives had made the decision to delay and “deprioritise” the inquiry in June without consulting its own board, or the DAC, and before the 16 July meeting.
The minutes of the 16 July meeting appeared to show that none of the 14 members of the committee who attended the online meeting had expressed any concerns about the commission’s decision that the inquiry would be “deprioritised” because of the coronavirus pandemic.
But after DNS approached committee members to ask why they had not spoken out, they produced a joint statement which explained why they had not done so.
They said committee members had “talked with the Commission both in and outside meetings, as it took decisions on re-timetabling of work in an extraordinary year”.
They added: “When they decided to put back the start of the inquiry into DWP decision making in order to focus on immediate COVID work we gained agreement that we would have input into its scoping and that this was a delay not a reduction in priority within the Strategic Plan.”
They said the commission had “re-scheduled work in the face of multiple emergencies and challenges” and they had advised the commission on a series of crucial COVID-related issues during 2020 as a result of the “multiple emergencies” disabled people have faced.
This includes blanket application of “do not attempt resuscitation” (DNAR) notices on disabled people without their consent; use of restraint and coercion in health and care settings; the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on disabled children’s education; and the need to protect and develop human rights protections as the UK leaves the European Union.
The advisory committee said it was “somewhat encouraged” by recent commission action on disabled people’s rights, including supporting successful legal cases, “calling out the unequal impacts of COVID, including on disabled people finding it difficult to get food, support and equal treatment”, and challenging discriminatory use of DNAR notices.
The statement was co-ordinated by committee member Liz Sayce and signed by her and 10 other committee members: Marc Bush, Helen Chipchase, Miro Griffiths, Fazilet Hadi, Professor Anna Lawson, Lord [Colin] Low, Rachel Perkins, who chairs the committee, Michelle Scattergood, Professor Nick Watson and Colin Young.
The commission was first approached in April 2019 by Labour’s Debbie Abrahams, a former shadow work and pensions secretary, with her concerns about the links between DWP and the deaths of claimants, and the wider impact of DWP policies on disabled people.
The watchdog eventually stated, in June this year, 14 months later, that “due to the pandemic we will not be able to undertake an inquiry in relation to the DWP this year”.
The EHRC decision not to carry out an inquiry this year was later presented to the DAC at its next meeting on 16 July, but the minutes of that meeting were only published last week.
According to the minutes, “members confirmed they had read the paper noting that… the Business Plan had been re-prioritised due to the pandemic, was being reviewed on a 90 day cycle and that a second re-prioritisation process was in train”.
Only last month, yet another death of a disabled benefit claimant linked to DWP failings emerged, with the family of Philippa Day describing how she left a note that “directly implicated” DWP in her death.
Philippa Day, who had agoraphobia, appears to have killed herself after hearing hours earlier that her repeated pleas for her personal independence payment assessment to be held in her own home had been rejected.
This week, DNS also reports on the death of Roy Curtis, in November 2018, after an inquest revealed close links between his suicide and decisions taken by DWP.
The last decade has seen a string of other preventable deaths linked to DWP’s failings – as with Philippa Day’s death, not only relating to the WCA – with the department repeatedly being told to correct serious, potentially-fatal flaws in its procedures and policies, and often failing to do so.
In addition to the death of Philippa Day, they include those of Errol Graham, Jodey Whiting, Faiza Ahmed, Michael O’Sullivan, Mark Wood, David Barr, Diane Hullah, James Oliver, Paul Donnachie, David Clapson, Stephen Carré, in January 2010, and countless others.
A five-year DNS investigation, published 12 months ago, provided strong and clear evidence that senior civil servants and ministers should face a criminal investigation for alleged misconduct in public office, as a result of decisions and actions taken from the early years of the 2010 coalition government.
3 December 2020
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
