Minister invited 44 ‘leaders’ to care summit, but not one disabled people’s organisation
The government failed to invite a single representative of a disabled people’s organisation (DPO) to last month’s crucial health and social care reform “summit” meeting, an omission that has been branded “disgraceful” and “unacceptable” by campaigners.
One disabled campaigner said the failure of health and social care secretary Sajid Javid to invite any DPO to his health and care sector meeting represented “a new low” for the government on engagement with disabled people.
The failure emerged after Disability News Service (DNS) secured a list of the 44 “senior leaders and experts” who attended the summit hosted by Javid on 20 September.
The list of “attendees” shows just one service-user, Clenton Farquharson, chair of the cross-sector Think Local Act Personal partnership, which itself includes representatives of local and central government, the NHS, care providers and service-users.
But Farquharson has told DNS that he was only invited “at extremely short notice” and was actually unable to attend, even though the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) included him on the list sent to DNS as one of the “attendees”.
This means that the summit meeting did not hear from a single service-user or DPO.
The failure came despite Inclusion London and other DPOs writing to Javid in June asking to be involved in the government’s social care reform programme.
They were told he was too busy to meet them.
Two months later he snubbed them again by failing to invite any of them to the summit meeting.
The government’s latest failure appears to be another clear breach of its duty, under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), to “closely consult with and actively involve” DPOs when developing laws and policies relating to disabled people.
And it comes only a week after DNS reported how the new care minister, Gillian Keegan, admitted she was completely unaware of disabled people’s criticism of the prime minister’s controversial social care reforms, and that she had “not looked specifically at the disability response” to the reforms.
Tracey Lazard, chief executive of Inclusion London, told DNS this week: “The failure to ensure any representation by disabled people and our organisations at this vital summit on social care marks a new low in this government’s already dismal record of engagement with DDPOs*.
“How can the government even begin to meet the challenge of transforming our broken social care system if it systematically excludes and disregards nearly half of all users of social care?”
She added: “This lack of engagement with disabled people and DDPOs is appalling.
“Not only does it fail to meet the UK’s obligations under the UNCRPD, but it makes no ethical or business sense.
“The government understands the importance of talking to businesses and listening to consumers, yet it fails to apply the same principles to disabled people.
“We appear not to be seen as equals by this government and as a result we will continue to experience ‘care’ as something that is done to us, rather than with us.”
Linda Burnip, co-founder of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), said it was “disgraceful” that no DPO was involved in the summit “although sadly not at all surprising”, while she said it was clear that Farquharson had only been invited as an “afterthought”.
She said: “The concept of involving disabled people and their organisations in something as vital as this to our futures seems to fail to penetrate the Westminster mindset.”
Mark Harrison, a member of the steering group of the Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance (ROFA), said the failure to include even one DPO in the summit showed it was “business as usual for this government.
“Rather than ‘nothing about us without us’, it is everything about us without us.
“Their contempt for disabled people has been clear over the last decade.
“Their refusal to establish meaningful engagement and consultation with DPOs also demonstrated their complete disregard for the UNCRPD.”
But Harrison said the other professional bodies and interest groups in the meeting were also at fault, as they apparently saw nothing wrong with “being in a room with government and discussing policies that affect disabled people without any representatives of DPOs in the room”.
He added: “ROFA calls on government to engage with us in a serious way to sort out the crisis in social care which is destroying so many lives.”
Farquharson said: “People with lived experience are ready and willing to engage positively with government at this key and crucial time for disability policy and social care reform.
“It’s not acceptable to hold meetings with sector leaders whilst excluding people with lived experience who can contribute their expert knowledge and skills.”
He added: “I call on ministers and the Department of Health and Social Care to commit to involving people with lived experience as part of their planning, not as an afterthought.”
Professor Peter Beresford, co-chair of the disabled people’s and service-user network Shaping Our Lives, said the failure to involve disabled people and DPOs in the summit was “another kick in the teeth for disabled people”, but not a surprise.
But he added: “Given the government’s appalling track record on disability it is difficult to see what would have been gained by any of us being a part of this window dressing.
“The new proposals for social care so far show no awareness of the importance of independent living and their only contribution seems to be to impose national insurance on older workers.
“Mounting conventional parliamentary action in relation to this government shows no serious signs of being listened too – just check out the worsening direction of travel of welfare reform.”
DHSC had not commented by noon today (Thursday).
*Deaf and disabled people’s organisations
14 October 2021
Government failure to prioritise social care led to countless deaths, MPs’ report suggests
The government and the NHS both failed to pay enough attention to the risks faced by the social care sector at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a report by MPs has concluded.
But the joint report by the Commons science and technology committee and the health and social care committee also ignores key ways in which disabled people’s rights were breached during the crisis.
The decision to prioritise the NHS over social care led to the “rapid discharge” of about 25,000 people from hospitals into care homes “without adequate testing or rigorous isolation” between 17 March and 15 April 2020, which contributed to the spread of the virus in those institutions, says the report.
The report – on early lessons from the pandemic – says this lack of priority during the early stages of the crisis demonstrated the “longstanding failure to afford social care the same attention as the NHS”.
It adds: “The UK was not alone in suffering significant loss of life in care homes, but the tragic scale of loss was among the worst in Europe and could have been mitigated.”
The report, which focuses on England, partly blames the lack of “prominence” of social care in the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), and it says ministers must address the “relative lack of knowledge and experience of social care” within DHSC and senior levels of the NHS.
It adds: “Staff shortages, the lack of testing, difficulties in obtaining PPE [personal protective equipment] and the design of care settings to enable communal living hampered isolation and infection control and the ability to keep covid at bay.”
The social care section of the report focuses on older people and says little about the impact on working-age disabled people, although it does address the disproportionate impact on people with learning difficulties.
It says there was a “high degree of consensus” among witnesses to the inquiry that “existing inequalities” played an important role in the disproportionate risk of death from COVID-19 faced by people with learning difficulties.
But the report ignores broader concerns about disability discrimination by the government as it responded to the pandemic, and within the NHS, and how that could have been to blame for disabled people’s sharply increased risk of dying from COVID-19.
Despite the committee hearing from more than 50 witnesses, no disabled people’s organisation gave evidence to the inquiry, with this week’s 150-page report omitting key breaches of disabled people’s rights during the pandemic.
Researchers backed by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found in a study published in June that working-age disabled women with higher support needs had been about 90 per cent more likely to die from coronavirus than non-disabled women of the same age, even after taking factors such as underlying health conditions, poverty and whether they lived in a care home into account.
Although this evidence was ignored by the committees, they did examine the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on people with learning difficulties.
They said that deaths were “especially high” among younger adults with learning difficulties, with research suggesting this was partly caused by existing health conditions but also by barriers to accessing NHS treatment.
These barriers, says the report, were caused by restrictions on non-COVID care and rules preventing carers, care workers and advocates from attending hospital with people with learning difficulties.
But the report fails to point out that this barrier also affected many other disabled people, and led to two disabled people – Fleur Perry and Mark Williams – successfully threatening legal action over an NHS England document that prevented disabled people with high support needs being accompanied into hospital by their personal assistants if they became ill.
And although the report draws on ONS reports on COVID-related care home resident deaths, deaths involving COVID-19 in the care sector, deaths involving COVID by region, deaths involving COVID by age, deaths involving COVID by sex, deaths involving COVID by ethnic status, deaths involving COVID by local area and socioeconomic deprivation, and COVID infection rates by household size, it ignores ONS reports on COVID-related deaths by disability status.
The report also fails to draw any conclusions about widespread allegations of wrongful use of “do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation” (DNACPR) orders on people with learning difficulties during the pandemic, despite evidence produced by the Care Quality Commission of concerns across the care sector.
Instead, the MPs conclude that although it was “clear that national NHS guidance was never to apply blanket DNACPRs to any group, the pattern of delayed and unclear guidance to the sector created widespread confusion on their appropriate use and certainly contributed to the perception in the sector that people with learning disabilities were not being valued in the same way as the general population during the pandemic”.
Again, this impacted far wider among disabled people, but this was also ignored by the report.
The report makes only a fleeting mention of the government’s refusal to provide an on-stage British Sign Language interpreter at televised COVID-19 briefings, when similar briefings in Wales and Scotland had done so.
The MPs say only that this “may” have reduced the ability of Deaf people to understand the government’s public health messages and “potentially” reduced “trust and compliance”.
14 October 2021
Hate crime figures rise sharply, while questions remain over some police forces
New Home Office figures that show a steep rise in recorded disability hate crime during the pandemic have sparked alarm among disabled campaigners, as well as fresh concerns over the contrasting performances of different police forces.
The figures show an increase of nine per cent in recorded disability hate crime across England and Wales in 2020-21, compared with the previous year, even though the country was in lockdown for large parts of the year.
The total of 9,208 recorded disability hate crimes does not include Greater Manchester Police (GMP), as the force had been unable to produce data for 2019-20. With GMP included, the figure reaches 9,943.
The Home Office says in a report on the figures that increases in reported hate crime over the last six years are thought to have been driven by improvements in recording by police forces, and growing awareness.
But it accepts that there “appear to have been short-term genuine rises in hate crime following certain trigger events”.
Inclusion London said this week that it believed the actual increase in disability hate crime (DHC) during the pandemic was “a lot higher” than the nine per cent reported by police forces.
It said that DHC referrals to the disabled people’s organisations involved in its London Deaf and Disabled People Organisations Hate Crime Partnership rose by 30 per cent at the time of the first lockdown 18 months ago.
Inclusion London, which published a report on the partnership’s work this week, said this increase in referrals continued throughout the pandemic.
Louise Holden, Inclusion London’s hate crime partnership project manager, said: “Although the reasons for underreporting are complex, one of them is that we are finding that most disabled people our organisations are in contact with do not want to report to police due to a severe distrust of the police and how they will be treated.”
This distrust, she said, had been eroded by highly-publicised cases in which police officers had abused disabled people.
She highlighted the cases of two officers from Bedfordshire police who attacked and chased an autistic man into his own home as he put out wheelie-bins, in 2014, and of a Metropolitan police officer who struck a black disabled teenager with his baton more than 30 times in a minute, in May 2019, after she had flagged down his car to ask for help.
The Home Office figures show sharply contrasting figures among different forces, with 937 recorded DHCs by West Yorkshire police, but only 527 by the Metropolitan police, a similar figure to Hampshire police, which covers a far smaller population but still recorded 515 DHCs.
Anne Novis, a member and former chair of the Met’s disability independent advisory group (disability IAG), former chair of Inclusion London and a long-time campaigner on disability hate crime, said she believed that Metropolitan police officers were still too often treating such crimes as anti-social behaviour.
She said it was frustrating that after nearly 25 years of pushing the force to take DHC more seriously it was still “making the same mistakes, or downright ignoring us”.
She said: “Officers are not getting the training they need to identify difference, and no one is leading on disability hate crime.
“The stats reflect the lack of recognition of disability hate crime by officers, not our lived experience.”
Her comments come five years after an initiative she developed with the force saw a record increase in recorded DHCs.
The Disability Hate Crime Matters initiative aimed to improve the way the force identified, investigated and responded to disability hate crime, but Novis said the Met was no longer implementing the lessons learned from that scheme.
She said: “Until [the Met] actually does what we proved worked with Disability Hate Crime Matters, or something similar, Deaf and disabled people will not get the justice or support they need.”
Sue Groves, the disabled chair of Medway independent police advisory group and an independent critical incident advisor to Kent police (which reported 445 DHCs), said there was still a large gap between the number of DHCs recorded by police forces and the number of such incidents reported in the Crime Survey for England and Wales.
The latest crime survey figures (PDF), published last year, showed about 50,000 disability hate crime incidents a year in the three years from 2017-18 to 2019-20, but also suggested a significant drop compared with the previous decade.
Groves said that – anecdotally – there had been a rise in hostility towards disabled people on public transport during the pandemic, connected with confusion and “poor initial messaging” about those who were exempt from wearing masks for impairment-related reasons.
And she said she believed there was “more to be done” to encourage disabled people to report offences to police and so narrow the “huge” gap between recorded disability hate crime and the actual number of incidents.
She said that recording of DHCs was patchy across police forces, which was partly because there were no standalone aggravated offences for disability hate crime, as there are for race and religion, so police officers cannot, for example, charge an offender with an offence of assault aggravated by disability hostility.
She said: “I know that Kent police have put in a lot of effort to raise awareness and worked with the Crown Prosecution Service to improve the outcomes for disability hate crime, but also recognise there is more to do.”
A Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) spokesperson said the force worked closely with the disability IAG and other independent bodies “to ensure we are listening to the views of those affected by hate crime and responding accordingly” and had a force lead on hate crime, who “oversees all strands” and ensures a consistent approach.
She said the force had “refreshed its overall approach to tackling hate crime” to improve support for victims, ensure a stronger response towards offenders and improve the accessibility of its service.
And she said the MPS has redeveloped its structure on responding to hate crime “with an enhanced focus on performance and outcomes”, following a review.
Superintendent Martin Kirby, the MPS lead responsible officer for hate crime, said: “The recent changes we have made in the MPS are aimed at ensuring our officers and staff across the MPS understand the significant impact hate crime has on London’s victims and communities.
“We want to ensure our staff are equipped with the best advice and guidance to enable them to deliver a first-class service to victims of all hate crime and bring offenders to justice.
“All of our basic command units now have hate crime and performance officers who can also provide guidance and expertise to those investigating hate crime locally and increase the low threshold for reporting.”
14 October 2021
Families share experiences of DWP deaths after viewing ground-breaking exhibition
The families of disabled benefit claimants whose deaths have been closely linked to the actions of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have met for the first time after visiting a ground-breaking digital exhibition.
The Museum of Austerity uses the families’ verbal testimony – and “volumetric capture” techniques that have produced high-quality holograms – to recreate the circumstances that led to the deaths of eight claimants in the decade of austerity from 2010.
Several of the families met at a central London hotel on Friday as guests of the English Touring Theatre and the National Theatre’s Immersive Storytelling Studio, which have produced the exhibition.
Each of them then experienced the exhibition for the first time.
Most of the relatives had never met each other before, and they spent hours sharing their experiences.
Alison Burton, who has led the campaign for justice for her father-in-law Errol Graham, who died three years ago, said: “To be in the room with people who are suffering exactly as you are, you feel normal.”
Jill Gant, whose son Mark “lost his benefits and his life due to the failure of the DWP’s fitness for work assessment process”, said the exhibition had been “deeply moving and powerful”.
She said: “I was so grateful for the opportunity to experience not just Mark’s story but the others’ too.”
She said that meeting the other families had been a “heart-warming experience”.
Gant, who was accompanied by Mark’s sister Cathie, added: “I seriously hope that this exhibition is seen by many people, including those responsible for making and implementing DWP policy in this area.”
Mo Ahmed, whose sister Sophie also features in Museum of Austerity, said the exhibition was both “powerful” and “emotionally draining”.
He said: “I challenge anyone to be in there and not be moved by all the stories.”
He said the exhibition could be “as close as we are going to get to justice”.
It is hoped that the exhibition, directed by critically-acclaimed theatre director Sacha Wares and still a work in progress, will tour the UK, and will also be seen in other countries.
Lee Burton, Errol’s son, said the exhibition was the first time he had listened to his wife, Alison, being interviewed about his father’s death, which included her description of identifying his body.
He said: “When I heard her speaking and the rawness of it, that really hit me because I didn’t know how much she had been suffering.”
He added: “I think it will touch masses of people. It was really emotional.”
Alison said the exhibition had recognised who Errol was and the “pain and suffering he endured” in the months leading to his death.
She said: “When you walk in that room, everything just hits you.
“It’s overwhelming, but I don’t regret it at all. For that 30 minutes, I didn’t feel alone.”
Gill Thompson, whose brother David Clapson is represented in the exhibition, said the images were “so real” and the story of what happened during the decade of austerity was “explained so well”.
But she said she could not believe that claimants were still dying, a decade after the death of Stephen Carré.
Stephen Carré’s story is summarised at the entrance to the exhibition, alongside a timeline of some of the key political moments from the decade of government-imposed austerity.
Imogen Day, whose sister Philippa died in 2019, said the exhibition was a “distressing” experience but also “absolutely stunning”.
She said: “They managed to turn so many tragedies into a rallying call.”
Philippa’s mother Jane said: “I feel very angry, but I am also amazed at the skill and artistry that it took.”
Imogen added: “It just feels needless that [DWP] knew about this suffering for so long and nothing changed.
“The negligence is so extensive that it feels deliberate.”
*John Pring, editor of Disability News Service, is specialist advisor and co-editor of the exhibition
14 October 2021
Overwhelming support for user-led commission’s new vision for social security
Proposals by a user-led commission for sweeping reform of the social security system – including a new “extra costs” benefit for disabled people – have secured overwhelming support in a consultation exercise.
More than 1,100 people responded to a draft plan drawn up by the Commission on Social Security, led by Experts by Experience.
The commission wants to replace the current working-age benefits system with something that is no longer “guided by stereotypes and myths about disabled people and people in poverty”.
Its three core proposals are to ensure a guaranteed decent income (GDI) of about £220 a week for a single adult and about £320 for a couple; to more than double child benefit to £50 per child per week; and to introduce a new extra costs benefit to replace personal independence payment (PIP).
Of those who responded to the survey, nearly nine in 10 of them (88 per cent) agreed with the GDI idea, described by one commissioner, Catherine Hale, as “the main bedrock of our proposals”.
Four in five (79 per cent) either agreed or strongly agreed with the commission’s proposal to replace PIP with a new personalised payment to cover the extra costs of disability.
And 96 per cent agreed with its suggestion that disabled people who receive disability benefits should be involved in planning and designing the system from the beginning*.
More than nine in 10 (92 per cent) agreed that the government should set up a new department that was separate from its efforts to support people into work, a move which would effectively split up the much-criticised Department for Work and Pensions.
There was also strong support for higher benefit rates (89 per cent) and for free social care (87 per cent).
Under the commission’s proposals, the new extra costs disability benefit would be co-produced with claimants, with higher rates of support, and assessments in line with the social model of disability, while it would recognise that disabled people are the experts in how their impairment affects them.
The new benefit would be increased every year and based on the principle of minimum intrusion and bureaucracy.
The commission, funded by Trust for London, was launched in 2019 to develop a new social security system in which claimants would be treated with dignity, trust and respect.
Every one of the commissioners has been or is on benefits, and all of them represent grassroots, user-led organisations that fight for the rights of benefit claimants and disabled people.
Yesterday (Wednesday), the commission held an online event to preview its ideas, before a launch later this year or early in 2022 of its final, detailed proposals.
Disabled activist Ellen Morrison, co-chair of the commission, said: “All of us involved in the commission have lived experience of the benefits system, we know how it’s failing, and through our consultation, where thousands of people [shared their thoughts] there is only consensus that the current system causes immense harm.”
She said that a new system “could not be more needed”, adding: “The cut to the universal credit uplift, the failure to extend that uplift to legacy benefits during the pandemic, the increase in energy bills, food prices going up, all of this hits people who rely on social security the most.
“And that’s why, when we demand that things have to change, whether that’s in meetings, protests, or social media posts, we want to do this alongside a vision of what we want instead.”
She said the commissioners had learned that “there is no perfect system”, but they said their key question now was whether their proposals were “significantly better” than the current system.
The idea for a grassroots, user-led project on the future of social security was first suggested by Dr Michael Orton, from the University of Warwick’s Warwick Institute for Employment Research, himself a disabled person with experience as a benefit claimant.
The commissioners have been supported by Orton and three other academics and researchers: Dr Rosa Morris, who has personal experience of the work capability assessment and three years ago completed a PhD examining the assessment process and disability benefits; Dr Kate Summers, from the London School of Economics; and Austin Taylor-Laybourn, from Trust for London.
Morris told yesterday’s event that it would be vital that a new social security department was “based on dignity and respect”.
She said the proposals were about “a completely new vision for social security” that would mean “everybody has enough money to live on and gets support with extra costs”.
But she said it must also be “a system that doesn’t stigmatise and scapegoat people but instead tries to treat people… with dignity and respect.
“And importantly, it is a system which is developed, designed and implemented in partnership with people who are affected by the policies themselves.”
*The commission stresses that these results came from a consultation and not a survey and so are not a statistically significant representation of the views of the wider public
14 October 2021
Collapse of discrimination law firm causes confusion, anger and concern
The collapse of a law firm that had hundreds of active disability discrimination cases has caused confusion, concern and anger among some of its disabled former clients.
Fry Law, and its founder, Chris Fry, were responsible for taking a string of ground-breaking disability discrimination cases before the company was placed into administration last month.
But there are now concerns that mounting financial problems may have led to significant administrative failings that could mean many of Fry Law’s former clients will now not be able to continue with their discrimination cases.
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has already confirmed that it is carrying out an investigation into Fry Law and Fry.
Disability News Service (DNS) has seen an email from an SRA investigation manager which confirms that SRA has an “active regulatory investigation” into Fry and Fry Law over financial and “related matters”, while an SRA spokesperson has told DNS: “We are investigating before deciding on appropriate action.”
Fry Law’s previous cases have been taken over by three other legal firms: Clear Law, Simpson Millar and SSB Law.
DNS has also seen an email written by Clear Law to one of Fry Law’s former clients, which says their case cannot now go forward because it is “statute barred” (otherwise known as time barred) because of what it says was Fry Law’s failure to meet strict Equality Act deadlines for lodging paperwork with the courts and paying the relevant fees.
This email is believed to have been sent to a number of disabled people, many of whom are likely to have been taking cases alleging discrimination by service-providers during the pandemic.
Among those clients who believe they have been let down by Fry Law is Marco Naayem.
He had two ongoing disability discrimination cases with Fry Law, both connected with allegations that service-providers failed to make reasonable adjustments during the pandemic.
Naayem, who has invisible physical impairments, as well as serious allergies and asthma that mean he cannot wear a face covering, was taking cases against the retailer Costco and a sports club, both of which refused him entry.
But he has been told that at least one of the cases seems to be time barred.
He said: “In a nutshell, Fry Law stuffed me up on two cases.
“It has really, really cheesed me off because I have been discriminated against and I wanted to right some wrongs and it has been taken away from me.”
He said he had been told by Clear Law that there were many other disabled people “in the same boat”.
Other former Fry Law clients have expressed anger and concern on social media over how their cases were dealt with before the firm’s collapse.
Fry Law was seen as the country’s leading firm of solicitors on disability discrimination, and one of the few that would take on cases around access to goods and services.
It took hundreds of cases on behalf of disabled people who alleged discrimination during the coronavirus pandemic, including around access to healthcare, access to supermarkets, and the government’s failure to provide British Sign Language interpreters at televised COVID-19 briefings.
Fry has previously blamed a complex series of factors for being forced into administration.
He accepted that there had been some administrative problems at Fry Law in the run-up to being placed into administration, some of which were caused by the sudden cancellation of one deal to take over the company, which led to two consultants leaving without giving notice.
He also accepted that a “small number of cases may have been mishandled” by a former member of staff.
He added: “Yes, we’re not perfect and there will be some cases, I am sure, because we were so short-staffed in the run-up to the administration, there are definitely cases that haven’t been worked on as proactively as I want.”
He said that if there were any cases of negligence, they would be protected by Fry Law’s insurance policy, and so the former client would be able to claim for the amount of compensation they were seeking in their discrimination claim.
He said: “If we were negligent and we missed a date then it will be picked up and clients will be compensated.
“They will be compensated for any negligence on our part. There is an appropriate mechanism for that.”
But he said that he had so far reviewed eight cases and none of them was time barred as a result of his firm’s actions.
Fry accepted that SRA was carrying out an inquiry, but he said it was a result of his “self-notifications made regarding the financial position of the business”.
He added: “I am in regular contact with the SRA and yes, they have had loads of complaints from people that we have not been replying to emails and messages quickly enough and we have accepted that that’s the case.”
Clear Law, Simpson Millar and SSB Law have declined to comment.
14 October 2021
Disabled people urged to make their voices heard in care staff consultation
Disabled people are being urged to take part in a government consultation so they can draw attention to the growing staffing crisis in social care.
The consultation on the impact of Brexit and the ending of freedom of movement on staffing in the adult social care sector closes on 29 October.
Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) says that disabled people across the country are reporting serious problems in recruiting and retaining personal assistants (PAs) and other social care staff.
It wants the government to “make rule changes to allow overseas personal assistants and live-in social care agency staff to enter the country and work so that disabled employers can continue to live independent lives”.
Linda Burnip, DPAC’s co-founder, has written to Stephen Chandler, president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, to ask him to support the call, telling him that for disabled people who employ PAs “it is now almost impossible to recruit new staff”.
She tells him: “In the past, especially for those needing live-in care, many people used specialist care agencies which also provided a safety net while people were recruiting replacement PA staff.”
But she says that this route “no longer exists and many agencies have been forced to refuse new clients particularly those which support people with high support needs such as Spinal Cord Injuries”.
And she says that PAs are now asking for as much as £285 a day, which is far more than they receive from their funders.
DPAC has provided guidance for those responding to the consultation, which is being carried out by the Migration Advisory Committee on behalf of the government.
The committee is due to report back to the government by the end of April 2022.
14 October 2021
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
