Watch tomorrow evening’s Dispatches on Channel 4 (7.30pm), produced in association with DNS (see this week’s second story).
Regulator probes train ramp safety failings at rail operators across Britain
Rail operators across the country are being investigated by their regulator after a series of concerns about potentially fatal safety flaws in the use of the ramps used to allow wheelchair-users to board trains.
Disability News Service (DNS) has this week been contacted by three disabled campaigners who have each raised concerns with different rail operators about the “persistent illegal and dangerous” use of manual boarding ramps.
They have each pointed out that ramps are repeatedly – and unlawfully – being used by rail staff who fail to ensure they are safely secured to the doorframe of the train using “lugs” or “pins”.
Some of the ramps have also been damaged so badly that they can no longer be safely attached to trains.
The safety flaws are putting disabled passengers across the country at risk of falling in their wheelchairs from ramps onto the platform, or even onto the tracks between the carriage and platform, potentially causing fatal injuries, including to wheelchair-users dependent on an oxygen supply.
DNS has been shown an email sent to another disabled rail-user by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) – which regulates health and safety for Britain’s rail network – in which it says that unsafe ramps have been reported by people “using a number of railway companies”.
ORR goes on to say that accidents caused by such unsafe ramps “are reasonably foreseeable and have the potential to cause fatal injury”.
One of the three rail-users, Doug Paulley, has sent a letter to ScotRail that highlights its apparent repeated breaches of the Equality Act, as it failed to act for nearly two years after he first started raising concerns.
On Monday, just a day after Paulley emailed a letter threatening legal action to ScotRail, ORR told him the company had agreed to replace 400 ramps at stations across its network in Scotland, as well as taking other safety measures.
Some of the ScotRail ramps no longer have the pins needed to secure them safely to the train because of being stored incorrectly.
ORR has told Paulley that it believes ScotRail’s arrangements “do not ensure that staff are competent in ensuring that the ramp is secured to the vehicle when in use, and this would explain why your repeated experiences have fallen short of legal compliance”.
Paulley said ScotRail has “put wheelchair users’ lives at risk by the provision of illegal ramps, over multiple years and despite having this brought to their attention”.
Meanwhile, in London, another wheelchair-user, Jeff Harvey, has told ORR how staff at Walthamstow overground station have twice in the last month failed to secure a ramp as he was leaving a train.
Last week, Harvey told Transport for London (TfL) how two members of staff had refused to correctly secure the ramp after he pointed out it was not properly attached, with one of them instead putting a foot on the ramp to try to reassure him it was safe to use in his powered wheelchair.
He told DNS: “It feels like a gamble around London whether you get a conscientious ramp wrangler or a sloppy or inexperienced person who purposely avoids using the lugs, or just can’t quite manage to get them in the holes and gives up.”
A third wheelchair-user, Chris Stapleton, told DNS he had experienced repeated “illegal and dangerous” use of ramps by staff working for rail operator Southern.
In September this year, a boarding ramp was used incorrectly on more than a quarter of his journeys by Southern staff who had failed to attach it using the lugs or pins.
On each occasion, when he challenged the staff member, “the person argued with me and either refused to deploy the ramp correctly, insisted it was fine to deploy it incorrectly, or lied and stated that they had deployed it correctly when they hadn’t”.
Stapleton told DNS: “Deploying the ramp without engaging the tabs means that the ramp is resting loosely on the doorplate and could easily slide off and crash onto the platform during use – I know personally one wheelchair-user to whom this has actually happened.
“Luckily she was not injured, but it could have turned out much worse for her.”
He has had a face-to-face meeting with two senior Southern managers about the issue, and is awaiting a report from an ORR investigator into the company’s failings.
An ORR spokesperson said: “We are currently investigating a number of complaints regarding wheelchair ramp failings and the immediate response from the train operators has been positive.
“Ramps must be secured by law for boarding and alighting, and although we have had no reports of any injuries, an unsecured ramp raises the risk.
“As such, our engagement with the train operators on these issues continues.”
A ScotRail spokesperson said: “ScotRail is committed to making the railway open and accessible to all.
“This includes implementing any recommendations and requirements specified by ORR to enhance safety on Scotland’s railway.
“We are in the process of securing new ramps for stations across Scotland, and anticipate that we will commence installing these new boarding aids early next year.”
Rory O’Neill, TfL’s general manager for London Overground, said: “We’re sorry for Mr Harvey’s experiences and would like to reassure him that running a safe and accessible network is our utmost priority.
“Our operator, Arriva Rail London, has robust procedures in place to ensure all people with reduced mobility can travel safely on our network, but I’m sorry for any occasion when these high standards are not met.
“These are extremely rare and any report is fully investigated and measures will always be taken to ensure it does not happen again.
“Arriva Rail London is supporting the Office of Rail and Road, [which] is looking at accessibility across the UK’s rail network, and will do everything possible to improve the accessibility of our network.”
Chris Fowler, Southern’s customer services director, said: “We genuinely want to do better to remove the barriers to independent travel through really great assistance.
“We need to understand why some of our people are getting this wrong – it’s so important we get this right every time.
“When we heard about Chris’ experience, we met with him and explained all that we’re doing to put this right.
“We’d already retrained all our frontline staff, so we’ve now set up an improved system to validate that training with theoretical and practical checks every three months.
“We’re using the information he’s given us to inform those checks with follow-up conversations with those who get something wrong.
“We’re also turning some of our colleagues who excel at providing assistance into coaches to spread the good practice, and reminder stickers about lugs are to be added to the ramps.
“On top of this, we now include assisted travel in our annual competency assessments of our platform dispatchers, watching them deploy a ramp and check on their other knowledge of assisted travel.
“This is an improved process. We’re not saying it’s perfect but we are making big strides. We’re taking this really seriously.”
16 December 2021
Coroner silent on why DWP was not questioned at inquest, despite ‘nightmare’ messages
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was not questioned about an autistic man’s suicide at an inquest, despite the bundle of evidence presented to the coroner containing multiple distressing messages he had scrawled on letters about his benefits.
A police officer who was called to Roy Curtis’s flat after his body was discovered in August 2019 found a folder of letters in which he had written desperate messages about his disability benefits “nightmare”.
The folder contained more than 10 letters from DWP, its contractor Maximus, and HMRC, on which Curtis wrote messages demonstrating how the government’s fitness for work process was causing him significant mental distress.
His messages warned that the work capability assessment (WCA) system was causing him extreme anxiety, and that he would take his own life if he could not secure the benefits he needed to survive.
Although the inquest into his death took place last December, this is the first time that the existence of all these messages has been revealed publicly.
Both DWP and Maximus appeared to confirm last night (Wednesday) that they had not been asked by the coroner to give evidence at the inquest.
Curtis’s parents are among relatives of disabled benefit claimants whose deaths have been linked to DWP’s failings and who will be interviewed for a Dispatches documentary – produced in association with Disability News Service (DNS) – that will be aired at 7.30pm on Channel 4 tomorrow (Friday).
The failure of Milton Keynes coroner Tom Osborne to require DWP civil servants or senior figures from Maximus to give evidence at the Roy Curtis inquest contrasts with the actions of another coroner, Gordon Clow, who took evidence in January from a series of DWP and Capita witnesses during the nine-day inquest into the death of Philippa Day.
That evidence led to Clow concluding that flaws in the disability benefits system were “the predominant factor and the only acute factor” that led to the young disabled mother taking her own life.
DNS has seen a digital version of the written evidence presented to the inquest into the death of Roy Curtis.
It shows how he repeatedly scrawled messages in red ink on letters he had received from DWP and Maximus – which carries out WCAs on the government’s behalf – and left them to be found after he took his own life.
One of the letters had been sent by Maximus in December 2016, and informed Roy Curtis, who was receiving incapacity benefit at the time, that he would shortly be reassessed for the new employment and support allowance.
On this letter, he had written: “This is when my nightmare began.”
On another letter, sent the following month, Maximus told him to attend an assessment centre in the centre of Milton Keynes for a face-to-face WCA, and on which he had scrawled: “I can’t go to MKC because of panic attacks. I was refused a home visit.”
The assessment appears to have been rescheduled and took place instead in Aylesbury.
On this letter he wrote: “So I had to go far away on a stressful trip.”
There are further letters that show how he was forced to attend a meeting with a DWP work coach, on one of which he wrote: “I went with support in extreme duress. She told me I would be OK and contacted in six months. Nothing.”
On a DWP letter he received the following year, telling him his ESA was being removed because of his failure to attend a WCA, he wrote: “No shit! I don’t need one.”
He also wrote: “I have said over and over again I am unfit for work.”
Then on a form from HMRC, he scrawled: “I am unfit to work. I will [take my own life*] if I can’t live.
“What’s the point??”
On another page of the same form, he had written “not fit for work” eight times.
The 27-year-old took his own life on or about 18 November 2018, six days after being told to attend another WCA, despite DWP being repeatedly warned its actions had made him suicidal.
The letter telling him he needed to attend the WCA had been generated by DWP’s computer system “without a person checking on the circumstances of the individual”, DWP later admitted.
Detective constable Lucy Jarrett, who found the letters, said in a statement submitted to last year’s inquest: “The words across the letters were as if the author had been distressed about his situation and that benefits and allowances had been stopped and he had been asking for help from various agencies.”
There were also repeated references by other 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.
In March 2017, the inquest heard, 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”.
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”.
Before he could take his own life, police were alerted by an online friend and he was 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.
His discharge summary stated: “Main triggers and stress were his benefits which were stopped… RC expresses stress and pressure that he was placed under the employment activity of the ESA benefits… He admits things are better since his money was paid and benefits restored.”
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 so would need to attend regular appointments.
A month later, on 12 November, Curtis was sent a letter by DWP telling him he needed to attend another WCA, on 3 December.
Six days later, he took his own life.
Despite all this evidence, no-one from DWP or Maximus gave evidence at the inquest, or appears to be have been asked to do so.
Curtis’s parents are still seeking a solicitor to help them take legal action against DWP and against Milton Keynes council, the two organisations they blame the most for their son’s death.
They believe the coroner should have held both DWP and Maximus to account at the inquest, and that her son had left the letters he had written to be found so that his battle with DWP could be told after his death.
His mother, Anabela, told DNS: “DWP failed to follow the signs that my son had hidden disabilities.”
She believes her son posted copies of his pleas for help to DWP, although she is not able to prove this, and that the notes are “something he would want us to fight for”.
His father, Fuad, believes his son’s notes “tell the story of his struggle with DWP”.
He said: “DWP policies need to change. Too many lives have been lost.”
Osborne criticised Milton Keynes council at the inquest for waiting more than two months to begin an “urgent” assessment of Roy Curtis’s support needs.
By the time the council’s social services department attempted to contact him, he was dead.
Curtis’s 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.
He 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.
Osborne also heard the inquest into the death of Stephen Carré nearly 12 years ago.
Following that inquest in 2010, Osborne became the first coroner to draw a link between the flawed WCA and the death of disabled benefit claimants, concluding that the decision to find Carré wrongly fit for work had been the “trigger” that led him to take his own life.
After that inquest, Osborne wrote a prevention of future deaths report which called on DWP to make changes to the WCA system to prevent further such deaths.
That report did not emerge publicly until it was found by DNS in autumn 2015, and it has since helped to prove how the failure by DWP ministers to take the necessary action in response to Osborne’s warning had led to many other such deaths.
But Osborne’s failure to question DWP civil servants at the Roy Curtis inquest meant there was no opportunity for a similar call for safety improvements to the WCA system or to other DWP or Maximus policies and practices.
A spokesperson for the coroner said: “Mr Osborne as the senior coroner for Milton Keynes is an independent judicial office holder and as such it would be inappropriate for him to comment on articles that may appear in the press or online.”
DWP refused to say if it was asked to give evidence at the inquest, if it would apologise for its role in the death of Roy Curtis, or if Curtis had posted copies of his messages to the department.
But a DWP spokesperson said in a statement: “Our sincere condolences remain with Mr Curtis’ family.
“We will always cooperate fully with the coroner in cases where we are asked to do so.”
Maximus also refused to say if it had been asked to give evidence at the inquest, but it also confirmed that it would always cooperate fully with an inquest when asked to do so by a coroner.
A Maximus spokesperson added: “Our deepest condolences go to the family of Mr Curtis.
“The role of Centre for Health and Disability Assessments** is to carry out a functional assessment of how a condition impacts on day-to-day life so DWP can make a decision on an individual’s eligibility for benefits.”
*This description has been removed by DNS as it refers to a method of suicide. It was the same method that Roy Curtis would eventually use to take his own life
** Maximus delivers its WCA contract through the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments
***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, SOS Silence of Suicide and Rethink
16 December 2021
Government’s ‘laughable’ and misleading UN update on ‘grave and systematic violations’
The government has been accused of publishing a “laughable” and unevidenced report that was supposed to provide an update on its progress since being accused in 2016 of “grave and systematic” violations of the UN disability convention.
The 10,500-word report by the government’s Disability Unit and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was quietly published last Thursday.
But instead of a detailed analysis of progress the UK government has made in addressing the violations in the last five years, the report appears instead to simply list a series of disability-related policies introduced in each area of violation, while ignoring evidence that suggests continuing breaches of the convention.
The UK government is supposed to update the UN’s committee on the rights of persons with disabilities (CRPD) every year on its progress in addressing the treaty violations, but it appears to have failed to produce a report in 2020.
The committee concluded in November 2016 that the UK government had discriminated against disabled people across three key parts of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD): independent living, work and employment, and the right to an adequate standard of living and social protection.
In this month’s annual update report, the government fails again to agree to carry out one of the committee’s key demands, for a rights-based assessment of the cumulative impact of its cuts and reforms on disabled people’s right to independent living, poverty, inclusion in the community and employment.
It also ignores key concerns raised about its engagement with disabled people and disabled people’s organisations, while suggesting – wrongly – that meeting with non-user-led charities helps it to meet its duties under the convention.
There is no mention in the report of the legal action being taken by four disabled campaigners who are arguing that work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey failed to carry out a lawful consultation with disabled people before the government’s National Disability Strategy was published in July.
There is also no mention of Coffey’s claim that she did not have a legal duty to consult with disabled people on the strategy before publishing it, and that she had chosen not to do so.
The section on social care spending makes no mention of the current funding crisis – widely reported by disabled people, the care sector and the media – and also confusingly refers to plans to “publish further detail in a white paper for reform later this year”, despite its adult social care white paper having been published two weeks ago.
Ellen Clifford, a member of the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) – which is likely to contribute to a response to the government’s update report next year – said it was “the usual list of important-sounding policies, programmes and measures that purport to improve disabled people’s lives, and figures for disability-related spending by government, that is absent of any context or comparative data.
“There is no evidence given as to how any of this has actually affected disabled people, presumably because any evidence there is points to how far things have continued to regress since the investigation took place in 2016.”
She added: “The government still refuses to carry out a basic cumulative impact assessment, despite the feasibility of doing so.”
Clifford said the section of the report on consultation and engagement was “particularly laughable” because of its frequent reference to “charities”.
She said: “The CRPD is very clear that they expect consultation and engagement to take place specifically with organisations run and controlled by Deaf and disabled people.
“The report refers to the Disability Charities Consortium, despite the fact that the only DDPO* involved, Disability Rights UK, publicly left it this year.”
Most of the breaches of the convention highlighted by the committee in 2016 were caused by policies introduced by Conservative ministers at DWP between 2010 and 2015.
It was the first such high-level inquiry to be carried out by the committee, and it was only made possible by years of research and lobbying of the UN committee by disabled activists at DPAC.
Meanwhile, the Government Equalities Office has launched a consultation on one of the disability employment measures included in its disability strategy.
The consultation, launched this morning (Thursday), seeks views on how employers with more than 250 employees “might be encouraged to collect and report statistics about disability to make their workforces more inclusive”.
The consultation document does not make it clear whether the government wants to make reporting on disability mandatory for large employers, but says instead that it is “seeking views that will shape our future approach”.
*Deaf and disabled people’s organisation
16 December 2021
DPOs call for urgent action to protect those at highest risk from COVID-19
Disabled people’s organisations are calling on the government to take urgent action to protect people in England who are clinically vulnerable to COVID-19, and those who cannot be vaccinated against the virus for medical reasons.
Disability Rights UK and Inclusion London have both spoken out after the government announced on Sunday that it was increasing the COVID-19 alert level from three to four in England, as a result of increasing concerns about the spread of the Omicron variant of the virus.
The package of government measures that previously supported the 3.8 million people considered to be clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) to the virus ended on 1 April as the spread of coronavirus appeared to be under control.
CEV people were instead advised to take measures to manage their own risks.
This meant that those shielding were no longer eligible to receive statutory sick pay or employment and support allowance on the grounds of being advised to shield, while they were also told that if they could not work from home, they should attend their workplaces.
CEV pupils and students were advised to return to their schools, colleges and universities from 1 April, and supermarkets ended priority access to delivery slots for those who were shielding on 21 June.
Since 19 July, the government’s guidance to CEV people has been to follow the same advice as the rest of the population, while “potentially thinking about extra precautions you could take to reduce your chance of catching COVID-19” and following any advice given by a healthcare specialist.
The shielding programme – and its associated guidance – closed officially in September.
But DR UK says the level of risk faced by those who are clinically vulnerable, and those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons, is so high that health and social care secretary Sajid Javid should “urgently review” these decisions.
Many of those who cannot have the vaccine for medical reasons will not be included in the CEV group, but DR UK believes they should also benefit from protective measures.
Among the measures DR UK believes should be introduced – all of which should also apply to those unable to be vaccinated – is for the NHS to be told to provide all CEV people with personalised medical advice and support, for councils to provide them with personalised support, and for arrangements for food and medicine delivery to CEV people to be reintroduced.
DR UK is also asking for the necessary employment protection and sick pay to ensure that CEV workers can shield and not attend the workplace, and for a helpline to be set up so CEV people can be signposted to health and community support.
Inclusion London has issued a similar demand for government action.
It has called on the government to reinstate packages of food and medical support for those who are CEV, to increase statutory sick pay to the equivalent of a full-time living wage rate, and to strengthen employees’ protections, particularly in relation to working from home, redundancy and dismissal.
It has also called for emergency measures and “significant additional emergency funding” to ensure that care and support packages can be maintained “in the face of what is likely to be huge rates of support worker absence”.
And it has called for national emergency funding for Deaf and disabled people’s organisations across the country, so they can continue to provide essential peer support, information and advocacy to Deaf and disabled people.
Kamran Mallick, DR UK’s chief executive, said: “We cannot stress enough how abandoned clinically vulnerable people feel and the urgent need to put effective protection and support measures in place.
“When all support was removed from 3.8 million clinically extremely vulnerable people earlier this year, it was done within the context of the virus being in retreat, due to the successful roll out of the vaccination programme.
“CEV people were asked to manage their own risk.
“The evidence shows that this approach is no longer tenable, due to the greatly increased chance of being infected by the omicron strain of the virus.
“In addition, there is a significant minority of people with chronic illness unable to minimise the impact of the virus by taking up vaccinations, due to the devastating consequences the jab has on their health.
“We are asking the secretary of state to urgently review his decision not to introduce new measures to protect and support people who are clinically vulnerable to COVID-19.”
Tracey Lazard, chief executive of Inclusion London, said: “Disabled people are once again being overlooked and disregarded by the government in this latest response to the pandemic.
“The government must act on the clear lessons from last year, learnt at such a painful cost to our communities.”
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said guidance was kept under review.
And it said that, from today (Thursday), antivirals and other treatments that can be administered within the community will be offered to those at highest risk if they test positive for COVID-19.
But it had declined by noon today (Thursday) to comment on the call from DR UK and Inclusion London for non-medical measures to be taken for those who are CEV.
A DHSC spokesperson said in a statement: “We encourage those who remain at higher risk to discuss any necessary precautions with their specialist as part of their routine care.
“Immunocompromised individuals are a priority cohort for therapeutic treatments, such as monoclonal antibody therapies and novel antivirals which reduce the risk of hospitalisations and deaths.”
16 December 2021
Disabled campaigners call for Liverpool to set example by ending care charges
A disabled activist who fought a successful care charges campaign 20 years ago is calling on her council to abandon “immoral” plans to increase charges, and instead set an example for other local authorities by making care and support free for everyone.
In 2001, Sue Ferguson forced Liverpool City Council to accept that her partner’s income should not be taken into account when deciding how much she should pay towards her care and support needs, following a four-year campaign.
The council reached a settlement with the former teacher on the eve of a high court hearing that was set to hear a judicial review of its policy.
Her legal challenge helped establish the principle that councils have no power to assess couples according to their joint resources and was later made clear in government guidance.
But Labour-run Liverpool City Council has now – in a much-delayed decision, following a consultation that ended last December – announced that it will increase charges for disabled and older people across the city, subject to a second consultation, which ends on 22 January.
Among the changes agreed on 3 December for non-residential care, it will increase the hourly rate service-users have to pay for their support from £10 to its full cost (potentially nearly £17 per hour), and to start means-tested charging for looking after pets while service-users are in hospital.
From February, the cap on the weekly charges that a disabled person can be asked to pay is set to rise from £222 to £350, and it will then rise again to £500 from October 2022, before the cap is removed completely 12 months later.
The changes will save the council more than £1 million a year by 2023-24.
Ferguson, a full-time wheelchair-user, said she believed such changes would have a significant impact on disabled people in the city.
She said: “I think people will refuse the care they need because the new charges will claw into what savings they have.
“It can’t be morally right for Liverpool City Council to seek to raise funds from people with assessed substantial and critical care needs to address the shortfall in the council’s coffers.
“They seem to think that disabled people are not the same as them, that we don’t save for things that matter to us.”
Scrapping all care charges would mean that Liverpool City Council would become only the second local authority in the country – after Hammersmith and Fulham – to do so.
Ferguson said: “I am disappointed that Liverpool are still charging for care.
“I can’t fathom how that can be right in any way.”
And she said she believed that a national campaign to scrap charges could be successful.
“Disabled people have votes. People are aware of what’s happening and they are up for a fight, I think.
“Disabled people need to speak up now and use their votes.”
She does not pay any charges herself for the care and support she receives, but she told Disability News Service (DNS) that she was campaigning – with the support of grassroots groups such as Liverpool Against The Cuts – for other disabled people in the city who do.
She said: “The Tory government is ultimately to blame and have taken money away from Liverpool steadily for the last 10 years, but councillors are there to represent me in council.
“Their main concern is balancing the budget.”
Cllr Pam Thomas, a disabled city councillor in Liverpool, and the council’s cabinet member for equality, diversity and inclusion, told DNS that she was in favour of removing care charges.
But she said that government funding to councils for social care had been “drastically cut” over the last 10 years, while overall funding cuts from government mean the council will have £34 million less to spend next year on top of £465 million cuts to its funding since 2010.
This compares, she says, with cuts of just £60 million in 10 years to Hammersmith and Fulham council’s budget.
Liverpool is the fourth most deprived council in England out of 316, with 23.5 per cent of the population income-deprived, while Hammersmith and Fulham is the 88th most deprived with 14.2 per cent of the population income-deprived.
She said ONS figures also show that the average number of years men and women can expect to be disabled in Liverpool is 9.7 and 11.1 respectively, compared to 8.4 and 10.2 in Hammersmith and Fulham, which means there is likely to be greater demand for social care in Liverpool.
Thomas said that if the increased charges do not happen, there will be “less money to spend elsewhere”.
She added: “If anyone can come up with ways of balancing the books without cutting services or without charging people then we really want to know how they would do it.”
She said she had known Sue Ferguson since she won the court case, a time when the council was not run by Labour and it had not been applying the national policy of a Labour government.
She said: “I was hopeful that following her personal success that Sue might work with me and other disabled people on a range of issues.
“I see her quite often as she demonstrates against the Labour council with other campaigners on a range of issues; not all are directly related to disability.”
She added: “I always say hello when I see her, and continued to hope she could work with me to resolve some of the many issues I have been working on for decades to make life easier for disabled people, including making the built environment, housing, transport systems and children’s playgrounds inclusive of disabled people, whilst also promoting the social model of disability and the disabled people’s rights movement.”
Ferguson’s call for an end to care charges in the city has won support from other disabled people’s groups.
Claire Glasman, from WinVisible, which supports and campaigns for disabled women, said councils across the country are introducing similar measures to Liverpool’s because of the government’s failure to solve the social care funding crisis.
She added: “I would like to pay tribute to Sue because her legal challenge 20 years ago helped protect disabled people from abuse by not making us financially dependent on partners.
“She made a big contribution to women’s safety in her court case.”
Jon Abrams, campaigns and justice coordinator for Inclusion London, a member of the Scrap Care Charges campaign, said: “Local authorities are increasing care charges – a tax on disability – to make up for government shortfalls up and down the country.
“This is unfair, immoral and also unnecessary.
“Hammersmith and Fulham have scrapped care charges.
“This is an opportunity for Liverpool City Council to abolish charges and support disabled, elderly and frail people rather than forcing many into the awful position of choosing between heating the home, eating or paying the care charges.”
Helen Rowlands, co-founder of Cheshire Disabled People Against Cuts (CDPAC), said: “Cheshire DPAC stand with Sue Ferguson and WinVisible in their tireless work to achieve an end to social care charging in Liverpool.”
She said that disabled activists were organising across the north-west to “raise awareness of the postcode lottery effects of local authorities’ political decision to charge disabled residents for the meeting of their statutory care and support needs.
“It is a tax on disability, and it must end.”
She pointed to the “positive sign” that Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has repeatedly called for universal free social care, and that CDPAC and other members of Cheshire Disabled People’s Panel were hoping to persuade Liverpool Metro mayor Steve Rotheram, and Cheshire West and Chester Council (CWAC) leader Louise Gittins, to join him.
She said Cheshire DPAC and the panel were bringing that message to CWAC’s commission on the future of adult social care, alongside other calls for interim measures, including a freeze on care charges in 2022.
A Liverpool City Council spokesperson said: “We understand that increasing the amount that people may be expected to contribute towards the cost of their care services concerns many people, but people are never asked to pay more than they can afford [following a financial assessment and a benefits maximisation check].
“However, it is important to note that there have been no changes to non-residential charges in Liverpool since 2014-15, although the charging policy is reviewed annually, whilst rates the local authority pays to providers have increased during that period.”
She said the removal of the maximum weekly charge would affect 47 service-users out of the 5,155 who currently receive non-residential services, while nearly 30 per cent have their care fully funded by the council.
She pointed to the deprivation and funding challenges also highlighted by Thomas.
She added: “Coupled with the pandemic, Liverpool faces increasing pressures on its social care services which the council and its partners and providers are working extremely hard to alleviate whilst setting a balanced budget as we are legally required to do.”
16 December 2021
Call for action on ‘unique’ barriers facing people with energy-limiting impairments
A major survey has shown the significant – and often unique – barriers faced by people with energy-limiting conditions (ELC).
Nearly every survey respondent (98 per cent) said that lack of understanding of ELC was a barrier to inclusion.
The second biggest barrier revealed by the survey was the “invalidation and disbelief” they face from the public, employers, and social security, health and social care professionals.
The survey of more than 1,700 people with energy-limiting chronic illness and other forms of energy-related impairment was carried out by the disabled people’s organisations Chronic Illness Inclusion (CII) and Disability Rights UK (DR UK).
They say in a new report – Removing Societal Barriers for Disabled People with Energy-Limiting Conditions (PDF) – that the findings show how the “vast majority of disabled people with energy-limiting conditions (ELC) encounter socially constructed barriers to wellbeing and participation in society”.
Many of the barriers are “unique” to people with ELC, the report says.
More than four in five respondents reported facing societal barriers – at least to some extent – to education, healthcare, income security, getting out, and socialising with friends and family.
A similar number reported facing barriers to income security, including through the benefits system, and more than three-quarters of respondents said they faced barriers to accessing social care.
The report says the stigma of disbelief and the dismissal of lived experience by healthcare professionals are too often traced back to a “medical approach” to ELC.
And it warns that people with ELC will remain “invisible, marginalised and neglected as a group” until more attention is paid to disabled people’s lived experience of impairment, rather than their diagnostic label.
Among the report’s recommendations is a call for training for Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefit assessors and decision-makers on the impact of ELC on work and daily living, and for DWP to commission specialist employment support for people with ELC.
It also calls on the government’s Disability Unit to engage with user-led organisations for people with ELC – like CII – and to run awareness campaigns to improve attitudes to ELC and other invisible impairments.
The Department for Transport should consult with people with ELC on increasing provision of seating, public toilets and accessible parking bays, so as to improve the accessibility of public transport and public spaces, the report says.
And it calls on the Department of Health and Social care to provide training for health and social care professionals that is led by people with ELC.
Catherine Hale, CII’s director, who wrote the report, said: “Many of the solutions are relatively simple, including more seating, less ambient noise, and easier access to the blue badge scheme.
“Employment opportunities for people with energy-limiting conditions can also be increased by relatively simple flexible working solutions such as remote working.
“The COVID-19 lockdowns showed us how easily this can be done when the collective will is there.”
But she added: “Until energy-limiting conditions are seen and understood as a type of disability, the adjustments and accommodations needed for greater access and inclusion will remain out of reach of those who need them.”
Kamran Mallick, DR UK’s chief executive, added: “The tragic emergence of Long Covid as an enduring legacy of the pandemic makes the case for action even more urgent.
“We must now act together, with stakeholders from various energy-limiting condition communities alongside disability rights experts, to strengthen and deliver rights and support for people with energy-limiting conditions so they are not left behind.”
16 December 2021
Mural brings disabled people and asylum-seekers together
Disabled people and asylum-seekers have worked together on a mural that illustrates some of the barriers they face in society, and which acts as a tribute to a disabled asylum-seeker who was murdered in 2016.
The mural, on the side of a community centre in Easton, Bristol, is the latest to be produced over the last decade through the Disability Murals project, originally run by the UK Disabled People’s Council.
Progress on the Easton mural was unveiled on Friday to mark Human Rights Day.
Among the designs featured on the walls of the community centre is an idea that was originally contributed by Kamil Ahmad, who had worked on another mural in Bristol before he was murdered by a racist neighbour in July 2016.
It shows him holding his head in his hands in despair.
Researcher-activist Rebecca Yeo, who has been working on the project since it began, said she had been involved with the disabled people’s movement for many years but had become aware when she started working with asylum-seekers of how the UK asylum system was “actively and deliberately disabling”.
She said at the launch that the mural “includes messages and images from Deaf and disabled activists, from disabled students and academics, from refugees, from homeless asylum-seekers and from people with many of those experiences combined”.
She said there was a lot of overlap between disabled people and people with experience of the asylum system, although some of those they worked with do not identify as disabled.
She said: “We bring people together, to learn from each other and to build understanding of the similarities and differences in our experiences.”
One of the asylum-seekers who has worked on the mural describes in a video that is being produced as part of the project that he has experienced mental distress due to living on the streets for more than three years with no food and no place to live.
His experience is illustrated in the mural through an image of a politician who ignores a homeless asylum-seeker sitting next to him in despair under a bush.
He says: “We’ve learned a lot about the politician man. But they know you live in this [situation]… they didn’t care.”
Another of those who have contributed to the mural is Lynn Stewart-Taylor, founder of the #WhereIsTheInterpreter campaign.
She describes in the video how Deaf people felt “stuck”, “left out” and “marginalised” by the government’s failure to provide a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreter at coronavirus television briefings.
Her part of the mural shows a Deaf person signing from within a cage, with a hand outside asking: “Where is the interpreter?”
Stewart-Taylor says: “It’s really, really impactful and demonstrates these barriers, that the cage is restricting.
“You can’t get out. You can’t see what else is around. You can’t be part of helping other people.
“I think that one day we will see that cage removed, but the fight continues until we’ve got equality.”
Janet, an asylum-seeker, describes on the video being refused a bus ticket because she only has cash and no bank card.
She says: “I would like people to understand the struggles that we have in this country… so it was very embarrassing, very shameful for everybody to be looking at you in the bus and you pretended that you were checking that your card is in the pocket, but you don’t have.”
Lizzy Horn, a young disabled woman who contributed an image of a dead flower in front of a window to the mural, describes how “you can kind of watch the world going on around you but not access it”.
She says the lockdown allowed non-disabled people to experience a little of what her life had been like for the last 13 years.
Another of the ideas represented in the mural – through a chain with broken links – is that the COVID-19 pandemic has broken many of the links that previously helped support disabled people and asylum-seekers.
Mike Steel, from Bristol Reclaiming Independent Living (BRIL), said: “One of the ideas behind the whole mural is that COVID has exposed or magnified what’s been going on anyway… the exclusion that disabled people, people with chronic illness, feel.”
He said the project had “brought together Deaf campaigners, people from disabled people’s organisations, refugee organisations, but basically just people from Bristol, ordinary people” to both represent through the mural what has happened and “how awful it’s been, but also that things can be really different”.
The artwork was led by mural artist Andrew Bolton, with the project supported by the Thinking Futures social sciences festival, Quartet Community Foundation, BRIL, Eastside Community Trust, The University of Bath’s public engagement unit, the University of Bristol’s public engagement team, Bristol City of Sanctuary and Bristol Hospitality Network.
16 December 2021
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
Disabled people say the sight of the lord mayor’s car parked in York city centre after blue badge holders were banned from doing so shows they are seen as “second class citizens”: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-59607389
Hotels are being turned into temporary care facilities staffed with workers flown in from Spain and Greece to relieve rising pressure on NHS hospital beds: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/dec/13/hotels-being-used-as-care-facilities-to-relieve-pressure-on-nhs
Forcing voters to show photo ID will hit black people, transgender voters and disabled Brits the hardest, MPs have warned. The Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee said the divisive voter ID checks could remove “crucial” trust in our democracy: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/forcing-voters-show-id-hit-25686202
Services that look after older and disabled people at home are facing the worst crisis in memory, operators have warned, with hours of unmet care in England increasing more than fivefold since May to 1.5 million: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/dec/12/homecare-services-crisis-uk-at-worst-point-yet-say-operators
Care workers should be added to the UK’s list of professions eligible for fast-tracked visas, the government’s independent advisers on migration have said. The migration advisory committee has recommended putting those working in social care on the shortage occupation list which was introduced after free movement of people across the European Union ended in January: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/dec/15/care-workers-fast-track-visas-uk-migration-advisory-committee
16 December 2021
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
