DWP failings linked to death of claimant whose body lay undiscovered for years
The body of a disabled woman lay undiscovered in her flat for more than three years after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) cut off her disability benefits, her family say.
Laura Winham’s body was not found until May 2021, more than three-and-a-half years after she was last seen alive.
The case has echoes of other tragic cases in which the bodies of disabled people were discovered months after DWP wrongly cut off their benefits, and should add to pressure for a public inquiry into deaths linked to the department’s actions.
Lawyers for Winham’s family say that DWP wrote to her in 2016 to say she would need to apply for the new personal independence payment (PIP) as her disability living allowance (DLA) was ending.
But they say that DWP did not carry out checks on her welfare when she failed to apply for PIP, and instead stopped her DLA payments, which she had been receiving for many years due to her physical impairments.
The following year, in October 2017, police officers – possibly the last people to see her alive – reported safeguarding concerns to Surrey County Council after visiting her flat, as she appeared to have been “self-neglecting”, had little food and appeared unaware how to access support from local services.
Despite being told her phone was not working, the council’s adult social care department tried to call her, and then wrote to her with details of local food banks and support teams.
Two weeks later, her case was closed with no contact having been made.
Her family believe she died several weeks later, in November 2017, at the age of 38. The only money she had was a handful of loose change.
Markings she had made on her calendar stopped that month, shortly after she had written that she needed help.
Her family had been unable to maintain regular contact with her because she believed – following years of significant mental distress and a diagnosis of schizophrenia – that they wanted to harm her.
Although her rent continued to be paid through housing benefit, her gas supply was eventually cut off in January 2019.
Her family believe that no-one from adult social care or the community mental health team had visited her for years, even though she had been sectioned twice.
They believe there was a referral in 2014 by her housing association to the local mental health trust, Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, because she appeared to have “untreated mental health issues”, was unwell, appeared thin, and said she had no friends and believed people were watching her.
Her family and their legal team at Hudgell Solicitors say this referral was not followed up.
She had received support from the same mental health trust several years earlier.
Her housing association also received no response to repeated calls, text messages and house visits between November 2018 and January 2021, when it was seeking access for a gas safety inspection, her family say.
Her brother Roy finally spotted part of her body sticking out from under a blanket as he was peering through the letterbox, after the family made another effort to get in touch in May 2021.
They had tried to contact her because her father had been unwell, and later returned to tell her he had died.
When police officers forced entry to the flat in Sheerwater, on the edge of Woking, they found her body.
There was a large mound of post which had built up over the years, and letters she had opened before she died showed her financial struggles.
A pre-inquest review hearing was held this week.
DWP refused this week to say whether this was another case of a disabled person dying in isolation after having their benefits wrongly removed, and refused to say why more was not done to check on Winham’s safety and to alert local bodies.
The department also declined to say if this and many other deaths had exposed systemic failings in the benefits system.
A DWP spokesperson said: “This is a tragic case and our sincere condolences are with Ms Winham’s family.”
John McArdle, co-founder of the grassroots group Black Triangle, who has played a key role over the last decade in exposing links between DWP and the deaths of claimants, said: “The DWP still have not put into place the safeguards that we have been demanding and until we see concrete evidence that safeguards are in place, disabled people will continue to die avoidably.
“Black Triangle sends its deepest condolences to her family and friends, and we support the family’s struggle for answers and wish them strength.”
The circumstances of Laura Winham’s death echo other similar tragedies over the last decade that have been closely linked to DWP.
The body of Sophia Yuferev, a talented artist who lived with significant mental distress, was discovered by police in her flat in Hornchurch, Essex, in November 2021, months after all her benefits had been removed by DWP.
Errol Graham starved to death in 2018, months after DWP wrongly stopped his out-of-work benefits, leaving him without any income. He weighed just four-and-a-half stone when his body was found by bailiffs who had knocked down his front door to evict him.
Mark Wood starved to death in 2013 after being found ineligible by DWP for employment and support allowance, even though he had never been able to cope with the demands of a job and his GP had said he was completely incapable of working.
But DWP’s failings date back even further, to the death of Timothy Finn, who starved to death in 1999. His benefits had been stopped automatically after he failed to respond to letters posted to him by the Benefits Agency.
Laura Winham’s sister Nicky spoke before this week’s pre-inquest hearing about how the family had lost contact with her “very much-loved younger sister”.
She said: “She believed all these voices in her head which were turning her against us, her own family.
“It put us in this terribly sad position of not knowing what to do for the best.
“And it was frightening. We couldn’t get through to her, each time we tried she seemed to get worse and would disappear in her car driving round the country, we did not know where she was.
“Contact with us seemed to put her under enormous strain and we always worried could make her worse again.
“As a family we weren’t given any help to deal with her illness, she refused to see us and, in the end, we very sadly had to respect her wishes and leave her to professionals who support people like her every day.
“We felt reassured that she had been given her own home, she was entitled to benefits, she had her own car and some part-time work, a few friends and we believed she would be supported by her mental health team and others moving forward.”
She added: “Everybody who was in contact with Laura and had a duty to her at some stage simply wiped their hands of her and forgot her. She was abandoned and left to die.
“The fact that she was dead for so long suggests failures all round to meet her basic human needs.”
Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust refused to comment.
Surrey County Council declined to answer questions about her death, but a council spokesperson said: “This is a truly tragic case and our sympathies and deepest condolences are with Laura’s family and friends.
“It’s important that every aspect of this complex case is reviewed and we’re committed to participating fully in the inquest process.
“This will include providing any information that is needed to support the coroner’s enquiries.”
2 February 2023
Inquiry on accessible transport ‘is a victory for disabled activists’
Campaigners have welcomed the decision of a committee of MPs to launch an inquiry to investigate the effectiveness of laws that are supposed to ensure an accessible transport system.
The inquiry by the transport select committee – which is believed to have been under discussion for several months – will also focus on how enforcement of that legislation can be improved, and on how the complaints and compensation systems are working.
Among its targets will be assessing the performance of regulators such as the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Office of Rail and Road, local authorities and the Civil Aviation Authority.
The committee decided to launch the inquiry after hearing evidence from organisations representing disabled people of their significant “discontent” about the way the transport system is run.
As part of its evidence-gathering for the inquiry, the committee has launched a survey to capture the experiences of disabled people when using transport services and attempting to complain or seek compensation for their failures.
This includes the barriers they experience when using trains, buses, taxis, planes, and the streets.
Today’s (Thursday) inquiry announcement comes as rail unions continue their long-running dispute with train operators and the government over pay and issues such as the planned closure of ticket offices and the introduction of more driver-only operated trains.
Disabled campaigners and allies have raised repeated concerns about accessible transport during the last year, particularly relating to barriers within the rail, bus and air travel industries.
Earlier this month, The National Federation of the Blind of the UK (NFBUK) warned transport secretary Mark Harper that “discriminatory” plans to remove guards from trains, cut staff and close ticket offices would prevent many disabled passengers travelling on the rail network and put lives at risk.
Research by The Association of British Commuters (ABC) had shown in November that six train companies were discriminating against disabled passengers at nearly 300 rail stations across the south-east of England by regularly denying “turn up and go” services to those who need boarding assistance.
The previous month, Matthew Smith, a key member of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, quit his role after accusing ministers of backing policies on de-staffing the rail network that discriminated against disabled rail passengers, and of ignoring his committee’s advice.
In December, accessible transport campaigner and wheelchair-user Doug Paulley told Disability News Service (DNS) how bus company Stagecoach breached access laws by refusing to allow him to board one of its buses, and then lied about its driver’s actions.
In July, DNS reported how UK airports and regulators were under pressure to act over the repeated discrimination faced by air passengers, after two prominent disabled campaigners were failed by assistance services within 24 hours.
British Airways cabin crew who work on flights in and out of Heathrow later told DNS that passenger assistance services at the airport were an “absolute shambles”, with waits of up to 90 minutes for disabled passengers left waiting to leave their planes.
Emily Yates, ABC’s co-founder, said this morning (Thursday): “The launch of this inquiry is a victory for disability rights activists and charities, which it’s great to see acknowledged by the committee.
“The timing sends a clear political message that the staffing and equality issues around the industrial dispute are finally being taken seriously.
“In the current climate, it’s obvious that the inquiry will produce a huge amount of evidence about rail accessibility.
“Now that the Department for Transport (DfT) knows this evidence is coming, it must pause all destaffing plans and any consultations on ticket office closures until the inquiry is complete and has reported back.
“This is the only way for that evidence to be available to people when responding to consultations, and for the DfT to properly fulfil its public sector equality duty.
“The fact that there is such little case law relevant to public transport speaks volumes about the effectiveness of the current legislation.
“Rail companies, for example, seemingly feel no threat, to such an extent that an operator can happily admit it has been ‘in breach of its legal obligations since 2010’.
“It should not be down to individuals to have to fight these battles, and the huge barriers to complaining and taking legal action can only be a sign that the system is rigged in favour of the operators.
“It requires urgent, radical reform.”
She added: “Having made a bold start, the transport committee must not neglect the structural causes of discrimination, and must address the ongoing crisis in bus policy, considered to be in breach of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
“The solutions to bus infrastructure failures, transport poverty, the lack of passenger representation, and the crisis in service provision can only be found in a regulated or publicly-owned system.
“This must be supported by a statutory right to transport and the implementation of the socio-economic duty of the Equality Act 2010.”
Accessible transport campaigner Doug Paulley, who has won numerous legal actions aimed at enforcing disabled people’s right to travel on public transport, also welcomed the new inquiry.
He said: “Enforcement of transport rights is so important.
“There’s little point in having theoretical legal rights if the reality is that they are not realised, and if the enforcement mechanisms and bodies are so fundamentally broken.
“I have spent much time these last several years attempting to enforce rights in my own minor way, and such is unfeasibly complicated and difficult, with statutory bodies being unaware of their roles and the legislation, let alone enforcing it.
“So I welcome the committee’s consideration of such, and I very much hope it makes a big difference for disabled people on the ground.”
Iain Stewart, the Conservative MP and chair of the transport select committee, said evidence from disability organisations had convinced the committee that there was “a great deal of discontent” among disabled people about the way transport services are run.
He said: “Many simply feel locked out of various modes of transport, from trains to planes and taxis, which of course means exclusion from work, education, socialising and all sorts of experiences that many take for granted.
“This inquiry will take a nuanced look at the system of legal obligations that govern how transport services should be run in a way that’s accessible for all, and at the means of enforcement and redress available to groups who feel side-lined.
“We will also look for a solution to the absence of any simple-to-use means of redress for people who are mistreated or denied their rights.
“People shouldn’t have to threaten huge, well-resourced transport companies with court action – typically a burden on complainants’ time, money and mental health that can take years to conclude.”
2 February 2023
DWP’s link to suicide ‘should be examined by second inquest’, Court of Appeal is told
Links between the decision of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to stop the benefits of a disabled woman and her subsequent suicide should be considered by a fresh inquest, the Court of Appeal has heard.
The court was hearing the latest attempt by Joy Dove* to persuade the courts to order a second inquest into the death of her daughter, Jodey Whiting, in February 2017.
The 42-year-old mother-of-nine and grandmother, from Stockton-on-Tees, took her own life 15 days after her employment and support allowance was wrongly stopped by DWP for missing a work capability assessment.
An inquest in 2017 failed to examine DWP’s role in her death or take evidence from any DWP witnesses, and there was no criticism of DWP by the coroner.
Dove has spent years fighting for a second inquest that would investigate the impact of DWP’s failings on her daughter.
She was in court this week with her son Jamie to listen to the appeal.
Before the hearing started, there was a silent vigil to remember Jodey Whiting outside the Royal Courts of Justice, organised by Disabled People Against Cuts, and supported by Deaths by Welfare and WinVisible.
Jeremy Hyam, representing Dove, told the panel of three judges that new evidence obtained since the first inquest – which lasted just 37 minutes – “changes the picture completely”.
He pointed to a report by the Independent Case Examiner (ICE), which found in February 2019 that DWP failed five times to follow its own safeguarding rules in the weeks leading up to Jodey Whiting’s suicide, despite her long history of mental distress and suicidal ideation.
He said: “The overall cumulative effect of those multiple failures was rightly described [by one of the high court judges who rejected the original bid for a second inquest] as shocking, as undoubtedly they are.”
Lord Justice Lewis, one of the three appeal court judges, told Hyam: “I read it again this morning; it’s sad and tragic reading with the missed opportunities.”
He said later that many people – although he would not comment himself – would view DWP’s failings in the case as “reprehensible”.
Hyam also highlighted a report by psychiatrist Dr Trevor Turner, a former vice-president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, which said Jodey Whiting’s mental state was likely to have been “substantially affected” by DWP’s decision to remove her out-of-work benefits for missing a work capability assessment she had not known about.
He said Turner had concluded that there was “likely to have been a causal link between the DWP failings outlined in the enclosed ICE report and Jodie’s state of mind immediately before her death”.
Hyam said that a second inquest should “seek out and record as many of the facts concerning this death” as necessary.
He added: “The fact of causal relationship between the cessation of benefits and death is a fact that should be recorded [by an inquest] in the public interest.”
He also mentioned the case of Michael O’Sullivan, who took his own life in September 2013.
Coroner Mary Hassell subsequently concluded through a prevention of future deaths (PFD) report that “the intense anxiety that triggered his suicide” was caused by his being found fit for work by DWP.
Hyam said that this PFD report showed the “legitimate public interest” and “real value” in a coroner bringing such a case to the attention of the public, and DWP.
He argued that there was a need for a fresh inquest into Jodey Whiting’s suicide so that somebody from DWP could “speak to what the policies and practices are at DWP” and show whether the department had dealt with the failings highlighted by the ICE report.
He said: “It is a perfectly proper matter to investigate if [DWP’s decision to stop her benefits] was the trigger event that formulated her intention to take her own life.”
Jonathan Dixey, representing DWP, said the work and pensions secretary at the time had accepted the criticisms made in the ICE report in 2019, and accepted that these failures “were serious and should not have occurred”.
If the court of appeal decides that there should now be a second inquest under article two – the right to life – of the European Convention on Human Rights, it will look at wider circumstances around Jodey Whiting’s death than if it orders a non-article two second inquest.
Dixey said DWP did not support or oppose the request for a fresh non-article two inquest, and he focused his arguments instead on DWP’s duties under article two.
He argued that DWP did not have a “general obligation” under article two to prevent a person taking their own life, even if it knew or ought to have known there was a “real and immediate risk” of this happening.
He also suggested that, in this case, it did not have an “operational duty” under article two, which would have obliged it to take reasonable steps to prevent her suicide if the withdrawal of her benefits had been seen as an “inherent dangerous activity”.
He said no previous court case had shown that DWP had such a duty “to take steps to avert a real and immediate risk of a benefit claimant taking their own life whilst living in the community”.
He suggested that Jodey Whiting had not been “vulnerable” enough for such a duty to apply, despite her “history of self-harm and suicide attempts”.
But Hyam told the court that if there was “total cessation of benefits for a highly vulnerable person”, it was “reasonably foreseeable to the department that that may have dire consequences for the individual and put them in a state of desperation”.
He said: “Because of the shocking failures, [Jodey Whiting] was pushed into a mental state of total desperation, such that she took the ultimate step and took her own life.”
Jonathan Hough, representing Jo Wharton, the Teesside and Hartlepool assistant coroner who heard the original inquest into Jodey Whiting’s death, said it was “not her intention to defend any of the clear, serious and admitted failings of DWP staff”.
He said Wharton believed the inquest she carried out in 2017 “was sufficient” to examine “the means by which Jodey died”.
Although it was a “brief hearing… that isn’t unusual for an inquest into a death by suicide, where the medical causes of death by suicidal intent are tragically clear”.
The Court of Appeal has reserved its judgment to a future date.
Meanwhile, many disabled activists have paid tribute to welfare rights expert Nick Dilworth, who died this week.
Rick Burgess, from Manchester Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), who worked with Dilworth on the first WOW petition campaign, described him as “a good, kind, and principled ally of disabled people and claimants” who “helped a great many people defend themselves against the DWP”.
Paula Peters, a member of DPAC’s national steering group, said Dilworth was “a lovely person, incredibly knowledgeable”, while his social security knowledge expertise were “second to none”. She said he was a “huge loss to the disability movement”.
As well as the countless disabled people he helped, Dilworth supported the family of Michael O’Sullivan for many years in their ongoing battle for justice.
Last year, Disability News Service reported how he helped the O’Sullivan family win a tribunal ruling that had once again highlighted DWP’s “cruelty”.
Dilworth had dismantled DWP’s argument in the tribunal hearing, arguing that it was neither legally nor morally right for DWP to have caused Michael O’Sullivan’s death and then attempt to retrieve benefits it had wrongly awarded him.
He had said afterwards that the ruling was a “small but significant development” in an “otherwise hugely complex and protracted case”, and that the number of DWP mistakes he and the family had uncovered in the case was “astonishing”.
*Dove has written A Mother’s Job, with authors Ann and Joe Cusack, which describes her journey from “passive and easygoing” great-grandmother to fierce campaigner, and how Jodey took her own life in despair at DWP’s decision to remove the support she relied on
2 February 2023
Network Rail installs new £700,000 footbridge that is inaccessible to wheelchair-users
Accessible transport campaigners have expressed shock and alarm at the decision of Network Rail to install an “innovative” railway footbridge that is completely inaccessible to many disabled people.
Network Rail described the opening of the prototype bridge as a “major safety boost” to people at Wistanstow, near Craven Arms, in Shropshire, even though it cannot be used by anyone who is unable to use steps.
A Network Rail manager said its teams had “gone above and beyond to create a quicker and more sustainable option for the future of the railway”.
But Sam Jennings, who campaigns on accessible transport and uses a powerchair, said the bridge should never have passed the design stage.
She said: “The Disability Discrimination Act came in 1995, the Equality Act in 2010, so why on earth in 2023 is infrastructure for public transport even being considered that isn’t accessible?
“It should have been rejected automatically and never got beyond the drawings stage.
“It just confirms for me that the Department for Transport is complicit in disability discrimination and is allowing people to be ‘disabled by the railway’.
“We shouldn’t even be having conversations about whether access is possible. If it’s not, then don’t build it.”
Alan Benson, another leading campaigner on access to public transport and also a powerchair-user, said: “We are constantly told how accessibility is a priority across the rail sector, about how we need new approaches.
“This bridge makes these aspirations ring hollow.
“In developing a new concept for the 21st century, designers have tackled cost, weight, installation and materials but explicitly made accessibility an afterthought.
“The crossing that this bridge replaces was undoubtedly unsafe, but it was level.
“Access has been thrown under the bus in this necessary upgrade.
“What I find most disappointing is the ableist attitudes expressed by industry professionals when challenged over the inaccessibility of this new design.
“The refusal to acknowledge this fundamental failing demonstrates how far we still have to go in altering attitudes in the sector.”
Fellow accessible transport campaigner Tony Jennings was also critical of the new bridge, adding: “Inclusive design should be integral from the start, not an afterthought.”
The publicity released alongside the opening of the bridge suggested the design would provide “a faster, more sustainable, and affordable option to assist with the closure of dangerous railway foot crossings around the UK”.
Network Rail said it had replaced an “extremely high-risk level crossing” that closed “a number of years ago after it was deemed unsafe for use”.
The bridge costs about 40 per cent less – at an average of £700,000 per bridge – and weighs about half that of a traditional steel bridge, while Network Rail claims installation can take place without disruption to passenger services.
But it is only now that Network Rail is looking at “fully accessible versions” of the prototype, with ramps and lifts.
Asked why it was building new bridges that were inaccessible to many disabled people, including wheelchair-users, Network Rail claimed that it builds new bridges “that meet the accessibility requirements for the specific sites” after carrying out “diversity and inclusivity assessments”.
A Network Rail spokesperson said: “This was done for the Wistanstow site where there is no accessible route to the bridge but a level accessible crossing of the railway is nearby.”
Andy Cross, programme manager at Network Rail Wales and Borders, said the footbridge was a prototype of an “innovative design” that “has the potential to transform railway crossing safety in an affordable, sustainable and efficient way”.
The Network Rail spokesperson added: “We started looking at accessible versions once we had established that the design concept would work.
“Now we have completed the installation of the prototype FLOW bridge we can focus on the development of the production version which will allow for fully accessible bridges.”
But Network Rail had failed to say by noon today (Thursday) whether it would be installing other inaccessible versions of the prototype bridge around the country.
2 February 2023
Disabled people tell MPs of ‘bleak’ cost-of-living struggle
MPs have been told of the desperate struggle for survival many disabled people are facing because of their spiralling living costs.
Members of the Commons women and equalities committee were hearing evidence yesterday (Wednesday) from two disabled people and a carer as part of a one-off session on the cost-of-living.
Abigail Broomfield, a disabled, full-time student, told the committee that the electricity costs for her small studio flat had risen from £53 in January 2022 to £166 in December 2022.
Her parliamentary petition, which called for all those on disability benefits to be eligible for the government’s £650 cost-of-living payment, was supported by nearly 25,000 people last year.
She said her taxi costs have increased by between 50 and 100 per cent, bus fares have also increased, while laundry costs have risen by 40 per cent.
She told the committee: “It’s very bleak.”
She described how one disabled friend ended up in hospital with hypothermia in December because she could only afford to heat one room in her flat.
Broomfield said she puts herself at risk of falls in her own flat by using a torch instead of turning on the lights to save money.
She added: “I’m not seeing my friends or family as much as I used to. As a really social person, this impacts on my mental health massively.
“I’ve given up my hobbies. If I get through this winter, I feel like it’s a miracle at the moment.
“We are making a lot of choices between heating and eating and as a result we are pushing ourselves into debt with utility companies, as we simply have to choose food to stay alive rather than paying these companies that are charging us a large amount.”
Jignesh Vaidya, another wheelchair-user, said he had given up his regular visits to the gym because he could no longer afford them, even though he has a full-time job and receives tax credits.
He used to play wheelchair basketball two or three times a week but can now only afford to go once a month, and even then he has to borrow money from his 82-year-old mother.
He told the committee: “Am I going to go out and socialise with a friend, go to basketball?
“That was my only output, to go and see my friends who are, like me, disabled, and play sports together, but that’s now taken away.
“[Now] I see them mainly once a month if I am lucky and I can afford that.”
Suzanne Buckner, a carer with a disabled husband and two disabled children, said the cost-of-living challenges her family are facing can sometimes become “completely overwhelming”.
Both she and Broomfield suggested to MPs that signing up to their energy providers’ priority services register (PSR) was almost pointless.
In December, Disability News Service reported that the government and the energy regulator Ofgem had confirmed that people who use ventilators, dialysis machines or other vital medical equipment in their own homes must make their own contingency plans rather than expect anything more than basic support in the event of planned power-cuts this winter, even if they sign up to a PSR.
Buckner said her family had been placed on the PSR of their electricity provider, Scottish Power, which told them in a letter that their power would be switched off regularly to “protect the national grid”.
She said: “I get a text telling me that I’m a vulnerable customer and people who live with me are vulnerable, and the electricity goes off and I get the candles out and the torches and I get the letter.
“So we’re on the register. It doesn’t work.”
Broomfield said she was also on her energy provider Bulb’s PSR but all that has meant so far is that she has received texts confirming that she is on the register.
She said she built up a small debt of less than £200 with Bulb, which she had been able to pay, but Bulb had passed it to a debt collector.
She also told the committee of the “dehumanising” process of applying for personal independence payment.
2 February 2023
Quarter of a million petition Tesco over inaccessible tills
Nearly a quarter of a million people have signed a disabled campaigner’s petition that calls for supermarket giant Tesco to stop introducing self-service, card-only tills in its stores.
Pat McCarthy says her local supermarket in Osterley, west London, is becoming steadily more inaccessible to her and other disabled customers as it replaces staffed checkouts with a new design of self-service tills which do not accept cash.
She says shopping at her local store has become “physically difficult”, “overwhelming”, and a “nightmare”.
The growth in self-service tills – particularly the new type installed at the Osterley store, which look like normal staffed checkouts – has led to longer queues at the few remaining staffed checkouts, and it has made shopping a more “physically taxing process”, she says.
She hopes that her Stop Replacing People by Machines campaign will help persuade Tesco – and other supermarkets – to reverse the trend towards installing self-service, card-only tills.
She told Disability News Service that these tills “discriminate against many disabled people” including many of those with visual, mobility or dexterity impairments, shoppers who find lifting and carrying difficult, and those who cannot use the new automated payment processes.
She said that self-service, card-only tills also create problems for care workers who are shopping for clients in cash and others for whom cash is their only means of paying for their shopping.
McCarthy said Tesco had “failed to engage professionally” with her concerns about the new tills and had refused her offers to attend a board meeting and debate the issue on television.
She said: “They don’t want to have the debate. I would like them to explain why they have gone over to self-service tills, other than to save money and maximise profit; these new tills must have cost millions to install.”
In a letter to Tesco’s chief executive, she wrote: “The new tills are contrary to good customer service and experience and many find that they are left behind in the technology and automation process that has now become our day-to-day ordinary shopping experience.
“What used to be pleasurable has now become a shopping ‘nightmare’.”
McCarthy said she decided to launch the petition because she felt Tesco’s actions were “unfair” and the company had failed to assess how they would impact disabled people.
She said she was “stunned” by the public’s reaction to her petition.
Although Tesco is the market leader, other supermarkets are heading in a similar direction on automated tills, she said.
Tesco is already trialling one store that has no staffed checkouts, in Holborn, central London, although staff are still available to support customers.
Customers with the Tesco app can check-in to the store, pick up their groceries and walk out again without visiting a checkout.
McCarthy, an active member of the Hillingdon and Hounslow branch of the Unite Community union, started her petition on Change.org last year, and it has now been signed by more than 240,000 people.
One disabled woman who signed the petition said: “I am disabled and in a wheelchair. Self service tills are impossible to use.”
Another disabled shopper wrote: “I’m visually impaired and can’t see the instructions when needing to weigh things.
“I’m fed up when no other tills are open and the long wait when you need assistance, it also encourages people to steal things.”
A third said: “I also have health problems and find the self service tills difficult.”
They said other supermarkets were taking a similar approach to Tesco, including Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s.
Tesco declined to say if it believed that replacing staffed checkouts with self-service tills, and introducing more card-only tills, was discriminatory and would make life more difficult for disabled shoppers.
It also declined to say if it had assessed the impact of these measures on disabled shoppers, and how many staffed checkouts had been replaced by self-service tills in the last 12 months.
But a spokesperson said in a statement: “Everyone is welcome at Tesco and we work hard to support our customers with disabilities, ensuring an accessible shopping experience for all – and we always give our customers the choice on how they want to check-out and pay.
“We first introduced self-service checkouts nearly 20 years ago and they have proved extremely popular with customers.
“Our colleagues and the friendly service they provide are absolutely vital to our stores and will always be on hand to help our customers, whether they are checking out at one of our colleague-operated or self-service checkouts.”
The spokesperson said that all Tesco stores – apart from the one in Holborn – offer a choice between staffed and self-service checkouts, and the company remains “committed to providing a wide choice of payment options at our stores”.
He said Tesco had also introduced features to help disabled customers, including working with the charity RNIB on a zoomed-in feature on self-service checkouts to help partially-sighted people pay for their groceries, and trialling lower or height-adjustable self-service checkouts.
2 February 2023
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
British Gas has suspended the use of court warrants to force the installation of prepayment meters, after evidence that agents working on its behalf ignored customers’ vulnerabilities. MPs and consumer groups had raised concerns that elderly and disabled people were being forced on to prepayment meters and then routinely cut off from heat and power as they could not afford to top up. The decision came after the Times alleged that a company used by British Gas to pursue debts had broken into homes to fit meters despite signs that young children and disabled people lived in the property: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/01/british-gas-halts-use-of-warrants-to-force-people-on-to-prepayment-meters-allegations-vulnerable-customers-break-in
A dementia home care agency spent as little as three-and-a-half minutes on taxpayer-funded care visits and filed records claiming far more care was given, according to evidence seen by the Guardian. The hasty care was exposed by Susan Beswick’s family, who had been told visits to the 78-year-old, who has Alzheimer’s disease, were supposed to last 30 or 45 minutes. Across nine visits, care workers formally logged close to six hours of care, but security cameras suggest they were in the house for under one hour 20 minutes – less than nine minutes a visit – on average: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/30/dementia-home-care-agency-half-hour-visits-lasted-little-three-minutes
A disabled councillor has been rebuked for knitting during a council meeting while discussing £11.4 million of cuts. Rachel Garrick, who represents the Caldicot Castle ward in Monmouthshire, was seen knitting during the key budget meeting where members and officers discussed cuts. Ms Garrick said she was knitting to help her concentrate and cope with pain: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz4lxgn3xwyo
A disabled man has secured a settlement with a gym chain, offering other disabled people the opportunity to pay reduced membership fees because their health condition prevents them using all the facilities. The ground-breaking agreement could benefit hundreds of thousands of disabled people who want to keep fit and improve their health: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/31/man-secures-cheaper-gym-fees-benefit-disabled-britons
New street layouts aimed at encouraging walking and cycling are continuing to make life dangerous for visually-impaired people, it has been claimed. More streets in Scotland’s biggest cities are being transformed to give priority to active travel. However, visually-impaired people have told the BBC the concerns they warned about in the early designs are still cropping up in new schemes: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-64464404
2 February 2023
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
