Kendall compares DWP deaths to Mid Staffs hospital scandal, as she opens door to new ‘safeguarding duty’

Labour’s new work and pensions secretary has told MPs that she is open to the idea of her department being subject to a legal “safeguarding duty”, a move that could transform its approach to the safety of disabled benefit claimants.

Liz Kendall, who made the comment in her first appearance before the Commons work and pensions committee, compared the countless deaths linked to her new department with the Mid Staffs hospital scandal, in which hundreds of patients died as a result of poor care.

She told the committee’s new chair, Debbie Abrahams, who had asked if she believed such a duty should be imposed on the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP): “I am open to the suggestion.

“I don’t just want people to be safe, which is the bare minimum, I want the best possible standard of care and support for people who rely on us.

“I think that being open about problems is the only way you solve them.”

Abrahams had told her that the committee had reopened its inquiry into DWP safeguarding (see separate story), which was originally launched following the deaths of hundreds – and possibly many more – of “vulnerable claimants”.

Kendall told the committee that “when there were problems in the NHS around Mid Staffs hospital, mistakes being made, but not being open about them, learning from mistakes to put into best practice, then a duty of candour was brought in.

“I don’t think laws alone change behaviour. It’s about culture and leadership from the top.

“But they can help… I sometimes think you need to look at both.”

She added: “So, it isn’t a commitment to doing it, but I am open to it, because we want to make sure… all of our policies, procedures, practices, contracts, staff, training… all of that has got to be right.

“And I’m very open to looking at all the possible mechanisms for achieving that. “

Her comments follow the repeated insistence by Conservative predecessors, including both Mel Stride and Therese Coffey, that DWP did not have a duty of care to those claiming benefits.

Coffey said four years ago that such a duty should be left to “the local councils, the social services, the doctors and other people”.

But only this week, Alison Burton, whose father-in-law Errol Graham starved to death after DWP wrongly stopped his benefits when he missed a work capability assessment, said DWP needed to have a legal duty of care to those receiving benefits.

Speaking as the committee reopened its safeguarding inquiry, she told Disability News Service (DNS): “I think if they had one it would go a long way to resolve a lot of the issues.”

After being told of Kendall’s comments, she said this morning (Thursday): “Let’s hope this is the first step forward to making sure the department is accountable for its actions.”

Evidence collected by DNS and others, stretching back more than a decade, has shown how DWP repeatedly ignored recommendations to improve the safety of its disability benefits assessment systems, leading to countless avoidable deaths.

It also shows how DWP hid evidence from independent reviews, and how the department failed to keep track of the actions taken in response to recommendations made by its own secret reviews.

Evidence also demonstrates that the cultural problems within DWP extend far beyond the assessment system, touching all aspects of its dealings with disabled people in the social security system.

The evidence, compiled over the last decade by DNS and other journalists, academics and activists, shows systemic negligence by DWP, a culture of cover-up and denial, and a refusal to accept that the department has a duty of care to those disabled people claiming support through the social security system.

Much of that evidence has been brought together in a detailed timeline, as part of the Deaths by Welfare project headed by Dr China Mills and supported by Healing Justice Ldn, which works with marginalised and oppressed communities.

The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, John Pring’s book on the deaths linked to DWP, is published by Pluto Press 

14 November 2024

Rail company cuts ticket office hours, just a year after national closure programme was abandoned

A train company has planned partial closures of 14 ticket offices across its network by “stealth”, say campaigners, a year after the rail industry was forced to back down over plans to shut nearly 1,000 of them across England.

Disabled campaigners and allies believe Southeastern’s plans will have a drastic negative impact on disabled passengers and others who need support to use rail services.

There are now fears that other train operating companies across the railway network might be planning similar moves, after they were all forced last year to abandon more extensive cost-cutting plans to completely close many of their ticket offices.

The government said this afternoon that it was now examining Southeastern’s plans “to ensure passengers remain supported”.

Freedom of information responses obtained by the Association of British Commuters (ABC)* – which campaigns for equality and justice in public transport – show that Southeastern is cutting the opening hours of ticket offices at the 14 stations in Kent, East Sussex and south-east London by six or seven hours a day, for at least five days a week, through its secretive Ticket Office Project Change Programme.

Changes at two of the stations have already been introduced, while the other reductions are set to be introduced early next year.

The company has avoided the need for a public consultation by describing the changes as “minor” under section 17 of the guidance that covers ticket office opening hours.

The cuts were originally proposed two years ago, so Southeastern has already secured Department for Transport (DfT) approval from the last government.

It is not yet clear whether other train-operating companies are engaged in similar attempts to reduce ticket office opening hours.

Among the concerns raised last year by disabled passengers who campaigned against the permanent closure of nearly 1,000 ticket offices across the country – which were abandoned 12 months ago – were over the accessibility of ticket vending machines and how a closure of ticket offices would increase anti-social behaviour and crime.

They also raised fears about the availability of hearing loops if ticket offices were closed; the loss of easily accessible “focal points” at stations; reduced access to waiting-rooms and toilets; the difficulty of navigating stations, for example for blind passengers; and discounted tickets that are only available at ticket offices.

Some or all of these concerns will now apply to the new cuts to ticket office opening hours.

A draft equality impact assessment (EIA), carried out by Southeastern, claims the impact of the changes on disabled people will be “minor”, but much of the information in the documents has been redacted.

In the EIA, Southeastern uses a similar defence to the one used by the rail industry when it fought last year’s campaign against the permanent closures, stating: “This change will help our people start to think differently about their roles and prioritise the customer service they are brilliant at giving rather than primarily being an underused sales point.

“This will be a beneficial mindset change for our passengers who will get a dedicated customer service expert to help them with their journeys.”

This suggests the changes will lead to no staffing cuts, while Southeastern said yesterday (Wednesday) that there would be no change to the hours the 14 stations are staffed “so there won’t be any impact on customer assistance”.

But the EIA suggests that Southeastern has already secured reductions through voluntary redundancies, which has only left enough staff “for a morning shift”.

Examples of the cuts to ticket office opening hours are a reduction of more than seven hours a day at Bexleyheath, Monday to Saturday; nearly seven hours fewer at Beckenham Junction, Monday to Saturday; and more than seven hours a day fewer at New Eltham from Monday to Friday, and six hours 40 minutes fewer on Saturdays.

The partial closures appear to come on top of the company’s failure to meet its existing duties on ticket office opening hours.

Only twice across 26 periods in two years has Southeastern met those duties across at least 80 per cent of its stations, ABC has discovered, with an average of just 74 per cent compliance with its duties.

Emily Yates, co-founder of ABC, pointed to the organisation’s 2023 campaign coalition letter, which raised the alarm about schedule 17, and how it could be used to destaff the network.

She said it was “completely absurd that after 680,000 responses to the 2023 ticket office consultation (PDF), this evidence is not being used to take staffing decisions.

“Instead, this operator is taking actions based on questionable decisions taken in 2022, which did not take any account of the impact on accessibility.

“The DfT must act immediately to prevent these ticket office cuts going ahead.

“They also need to enforce ticket office staffing hours, publish compliance figures for all operators, and take overall responsibility for staffing strategy – ensuring that there is always a member of staff present to provide assistance.

“Ultimately, the government needs to end this flawed system of staffing regulation once and for all.

“Currently it is only ticket office staffing that is even regulated, and there is no transparency whatsoever about other staffing numbers.

“We need to see the regulation of all staff, complete transparency about staffing figures of all types, and duties to consult on all changes relating to accessibility.”

Disabled activist Paula Peters, who first alerted ABC to the partial closures, after being contacted by a Southeastern employee, said: “Disabled people across the UK were very much involved in the national campaign by the RMT union and community groups to keep the ticket offices open in 2023.

“There was a huge backlash from the public over the public consultations to close the ticket offices.

“Disabled people wanted the ticket offices kept fully open and needed them kept open.

“That Southeastern are using schedule 17 without a public consultation to restrict ticket office opening hours shows the scant regard they have for disabled passengers’ access needs and safety.”

She added: “As a disabled passenger, I need frequent access to trains to London for hospital appointments.

“These are major changes for disabled people like me who need the access to the ticket offices to make sure I get the best price for my journey but also assist with journey planning and access to the station.

“By restricting ticket office hours, this will be another barrier for me to travel safely and have my needs met.”

A DfT spokesperson said this afternoon: “We recognise the vital role ticket offices play in the journeys of people with disabilities, and we have no plans to close them.

“These ticket office changes were agreed under the previous government.

“The department is now examining Southeastern’s plans to ensure passengers remain supported.”

Southeastern insisted yesterday that it did not conceal the changes, and it claimed they were first publicised by the industry’s Rail Delivery Group in 2022, before the process was paused during last year’s national consultation.

It claimed that the new opening hours were publicised on its website and on station posters last month.

It also claimed that additional platform staff would be in place to mitigate the impact on disabled passengers of the ticket offices not being open.

David Wornham, Southeastern’s passenger services director, said: “In 2022, proposals to adjust hours at 14 of our 141 ticket offices were paused during the national consultation.

“Recently, changes were made at Otford and Deal, which both typically see no more than 10 ticket sales per hour each shift.

“We plan to adjust hours at another 12 ticket offices in 2025.

“Stations will remain staffed, with accessibility and safeguarding assistance provided by platform staff.”

He also said: “Following a national consultation confirming that no ticket offices will close we are recruiting and training around 100 additional ticket office staff this year.

“To date we have recruited 97 of these and this will lead to significantly increased ticket office hours.”

He added: “We are committed to enhancing accessible travel across our network, helping more people every day.

“Our website and posters display staffing and ticket hours for each station, making it easy for customers to find available assistance.

“Passenger assistance, both booked and unbooked, is experiencing strong growth, with an overall customer satisfaction rating of 97 per cent.”

*Visit ABC’s website for more details of its investigation

14 November 2024

Labour and its disability minister appear to be in dispute over assistance dog discrimination at party conference

Labour appears set for a serious disagreement with its own minister for disability, after apparently rejecting his advice about a disabled member who was prevented from attending the party’s annual conference with her assistance dog.

Sir Stephen Timms wrote to the party’s new general secretary on Saturday to raise concerns about the treatment of Anna Morell, a party delegate.

He told Hollie Ridley in the letter that, having taken advice from the Cabinet Office: “It does look to me as if Anna should have been admitted, together with her dog.”

But when Disability News Service checked with the party that it now accepted it had been in the wrong, it instead made it clear – but only in a point “on background”, so it cannot be quoted – that Labour only accepted disabled people with recognised assistance dogs at its annual conference.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has made it clear in guidance – updated in September – that there is no legal requirement for an assistance dog to be trained, that assistance dogs “can also be trained by their owners”, and that the law “does not require the dog to wear a harness or jacket to identify it as an assistance dog”.

It appears, although the party refused to confirm this point this week, that Labour continues to dispute the EHRC guidance.

The incident was the latest example of years of disability discrimination by Labour, which has frequently left the party on the verge of being sued by its own disabled members under the Equality Act.

Morell is actively considering legal action against her own party.

She said in September that she felt like a “third-class citizen” when staff refused to allow her to enter Labour’s conference in Liverpool with her assistance dog Rex.

She was told that the party’s conference policy did not allow service dogs entry without accreditation, registration, or formal training.

Morell, who has an energy-limiting impairment, later raised her concerns from the main stage of the conference in Liverpool, but without Rex, who plays a key health and safety role for her.

Since the conference, she has been in touch about the incident with Sir Stephen, Labour’s minister for social security and disability.

He wrote to Ridley after obtaining a legal briefing from the Cabinet Office.

He said the Cabinet Office had told him there were “no rules or regulations that make it a requirement for people with assistance dogs to have documentation to enter retail outlets, licensed premises or any other premises of businesses or service providers”.

The Cabinet Office told him that the government “fully supports the principle that guide dogs and assistance dogs should always be allowed access, except in the most exceptional circumstances”.

Sir Stephen told Ridley in the letter: “It does look to me as if Anna should have been admitted, together with her dog.

“Will these difficulties be resolved in time for future Party events?”

Morell is still waiting for a copy of the minutes of a meeting with Labour chiefs about her complaint, in which she was supported by Ellen Morrison, who represents disabled members on Labour’s national executive committee, and a representative of Disability Labour, on the afternoon of the prime minister’s speech at the conference in September.

Morell had been denied permission to record the meeting.

She said this week: “I am astonished and disappointed by the radio silence from the party.

“The law is very clear and I cannot understand why the conference organisers cannot accept this, and change things for next year.

“I cannot understand why there appears to be no will to implement such an important law [the Equality Act] which was brought into being by the same party.

“The strapline at conference this year was ‘change begins’. Does it? Please can it begin for disabled people?”

Labour refused to respond to the points made in Sir Stephen’s letter; refused to say if it accepted that it had been unlawful to prevent Morell’s assistance dog joining her at the conference; refused to comment on its failure to provide minutes from the meeting; and refused to promise that Morell and other disabled people in her position would in future be able to attend the conference with their assistance dogs.

Instead, a Labour party spokesperson said in a statement: “We strive to ensure that all our events are accessible to our disabled members by working with organisations that represent disabled people and provide expert services.”

A Cabinet Office spokesperson declined to confirm that Sir Stephen was correct when he suggested that Morell should have been allowed entry with her assistance dog.

She said the Cabinet Office could not comment on the point of law because it related to something that was “part of a political letter”.

But she added: “The government’s general position on disability remains that no one deserves to be held back or treated unfairly because of their disability and that we are determined to tackle barriers and work with disabled people to ensure they have equal access to every opportunity.

“Where individuals are concerned they have been a victim of discrimination, the Equality Advisory and Support Service is there to provide information and advice and it is important that both the government and businesses address the issue to ensure that assistance dog users feel welcome in society.”

14 November 2024

Kendall strongly hints there will be no PIP vouchers, but twice fails to make that promise

Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall has strongly hinted that she will not implement the last government’s proposal to replace disability benefits with vouchers, but she twice failed to make a promise to that effect to MPs.

A public consultation that began in April under the Conservative government included a number of proposals aimed at cutting spending on personal independence payment (PIP), including one possible idea to replace cash PIP payments with vouchers.

The new Labour government has repeatedly refused to say if it supports the ideas in the Conservative consultation or provide any details of its own proposed PIP reforms, which are set to be published in the spring.

But in response to a question from Labour’s Damien Egan, Liz Kendall told the Commons work and pensions committee yesterday (Wednesday): “I was very struck, particularly by the comments people made around shifting support to vouchers and where many organisations said their real concern was that it took away people’s autonomy, particularly when services are so stretched and tight.

“So, I’ve read those very, very carefully.”

She declined to rule out the vouchers idea, but she said Labour’s plans would be based on “getting the decisions right first time, early intervention, genuine support to help people into work, helping people live full, fulfilling and independent lives.

“But this is extremely difficult, and I know people really want more detail, but we won’t do that until we’re absolutely ready and have had the proper discussions with people.”

She was later asked to rule out the vouchers idea by the Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesperson, Steve Darling, who told her that a disabled constituent was “worried sick about vouchers being offered up and her not being able to have a richer life”.

Kendall again declined to rule out the idea of vouchers but told him she was “really aware of people’s concerns about that”.

She said that “this issue of empowerment and giving people power and control over their lives is really important because I think it leads to better results, so I understand people’s real concerns about that”.

Asked by Labour’s Amanda Hack about her plans for reforming the work capability assessment (WCA), Kendall repeated the government’s line that it would either be “reformed or replaced alongside a proper plan to support disabled people”.

She highlighted flaws in the WCA system, including delays, too many decisions being overturned, and – in a criticism used by DWP ministers for decades – that there was an unhelpful “binary classification [in the system] between those who are able to work and those who are unable to work”.

She claimed that “the truth is, apart from those with very, very severe disabilities, many people’s health conditions fluctuate, and it depends on the work, the job that they have, the flexibility that might be available, and a number of other issues”.

She said the last government “wrote people off, then blamed them, [so] I am not surprised that people are concerned and worried”.

Kendall again admitted that the government would make the savings promised by the last government, which appears to refer to Conservative plans to cut spending by £2.8 billion in the four years to 2028-29 by tightening the WCA, which would have seen 424,000 disabled people lose their entitlement to extra support of up to £4,900 a year by 2028-29.

She said the government would make these savings by “bringing forward our own proposals” after “genuinely” consulting with “disabled people in the organisations that represent them”.

She added: “I believe disabled people should have the same rights, choices to work, to independent living, as everybody else.

“That is the core that runs through us. So that’s the absolute principle. I cannot give you a more detailed response now, but that is our approach.”

Asked by Egan about the “big spike” in the number of people with mental health conditions claiming out-of-work disability benefits, particularly younger people, Kendall said the UK was “an older, sicker nation” than the other major economies in the G7 group.

She said: “If you look around the country, the places that have the worst life expectancy and lowest healthy life expectancy and the highest economic inactivity are the same places, parts of the country that were written off by the last but one Tory government, and the last one promised to level them up and actually didn’t.”

With young people, she said she believed the increase in mental ill-health was likely to be connected to “the impact of Covid, possibly also built on top of the cost-of-living crisis, anxious, worried parents, anxious, worried children, plus social media, plus less stigma about reporting mental health.

“I wish in life there was one reason that you could give an easy headline for, but, you know, life’s not like that.

“There are complicated things going on with mental health. That’s why we’ve really got to intervene early.”

She added: “One of the reasons we want mental health support in every school, and mental health support in open access hubs in every community, is we know these problems start young, so we’ve got to intervene much earlier.”

14 November 2024

Warning for MPs set to vote on assisted suicide: ‘Please do not sleepwalk into something you will regret’

A string of disabled people’s organisations and disabled activists have delivered powerful statements opposing a bill that would legalise assisted suicide, just two weeks before it is due to be debated and voted on by MPs.

Labour’s Kim Leadbeater finally published her 38-page terminally ill adults (end of life) bill on Tuesday, giving MPs only 17 days to digest the contents of her private members’ bill before they vote on it on Friday 29 November.

Among the disabled people’s organisations to issue statements opposing the bill this week were Inclusion London, Disability Rights UK (DR UK) and Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC).

In a thread on social media, DPAC warned that MPs would have a maximum of five hours to debate the bill’s 43 clauses and six schedules at second reading, which was not long enough “by many miles”.

The bill, which applies to England and Wales, would allow people to seek an assisted death if they have “an inevitably progressive illness, disease or medical condition which cannot be reversed by treatment” and their death could “reasonably be expected within six months”.

DPAC warned that doctors often get such estimates wrong with terminal illnesses.

And although the bill creates a new offence of “dishonesty, coercion or pressure” aimed at those trying to force someone to seek an assisted suicide, DPAC said such actions were “difficult, indeed sometimes impossible, to detect”.

And while the bill would give a new right to an assisted suicide, there would be “no right to palliative care or independent living support”, said DPAC.

Inclusion London said it was “deeply concerned” that after “14 years of austerity and broken public services… choosing to die may seem like the only viable option”.

It said in its statement that the solution to suffering pain, isolation, poverty or a lack of good support was not helping people to die “but instead helping people to live by investing in and providing the support they need.

“We know many in our society think our lives are not worth living and we see the consequences of this deeply entrenched view in the experience of other countries, such as Canada, where the conditions and criteria for assisted dying quickly become wider than only the terminally ill and now include many different groups of disabled people.”

Inclusion London added: “We also saw how quickly disabled people’s lives were treated as of lesser value during Covid.

“Legalising assisted dying will only reinforce and perpetuate this.”

In its statement opposing the bill, DR UK said that assistance to die “should not be easier to access than assistance to live.

“Parliament and government should not allow assisted dying when political choices undermine our lives, and rights, every day.”

The statement added: “We recognise this is an issue many feel strongly about, and not everybody (including some disabled people) will agree with our position.

“However, until access to good quality support and services become the norm, we believe that opting for assisted dying may not be a real choice, and the proposed change in the law poses a danger to disabled people.”

There were also powerful statements this week from disabled activists.

Baroness [Jane] Campbell, who for years has led the fight against legalisation as co-founder of Not Dead Yet UK (NDYUK), told Disability News Service that disabled people were “deeply worried” that the legislation would be “passed in a hurry, to please the electorate”.

She said: “NDYUK has studied the effects of assisted suicide legislation internationally over two decades.

“The evidence demonstrates that safeguards do not work in practice.

“The Kim Leadbeater bill will result in more deaths amongst the most disempowered people in our society.”

She added: “Disabled people without sufficient health and social care to live with dignity often feel a burden on their families and friends because these services are scarce and declining in quality.

“It is not rare to hear disabled people in vulnerable situations say, ‘Perhaps I would be better off dead?’

“Feeling a burden or desperate for scarce health and social care services to live with dignity, must never be the reason to end a life prematurely.”

Baroness Campbell said she was calling on MPs not to “sleepwalk into something which you will regret” and to “hear our voices of experience before voting on the 29th November”.

She said: “Thousands of disabled people do not enjoy choices and rights to support services when we are ill or incapacitated.

“Assisted suicide legislation will only serve to push the desperate in a direction from which there is no coming back.”

Dr Miro Griffiths, co-director of the Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Leeds, although speaking on behalf of the Better Way campaign, said: “We are deeply concerned that Kim Leadbeater’s bill will not enjoy an appropriate level of scrutiny before second reading in two weeks’ time.

“MPs and the public deserve the opportunity to give this legislation and the issues it raises considered reflection.

“This will not be possible under the dangerously short time frame allowed for by the bill’s architects.

“Legalising assisted suicide in the UK would give rise to profound injustices, injustices that affect disabled people, people facing poverty, people who are isolated and lonely, and many others.

“No amount of legal drafting can rule out citizens choosing to end their lives because they lack sufficient support to go on living.”

He added: “Doctors warn that ‘assisted dying’ would undermine palliative care for everyone.

“Psychiatrists warn of a harmful shift in our societal response to suicide.

“And sociologists caution that a change in the law may open the door to more permissive legislation in years to come.

“The tragic experience of other nations suggests it is a matter of when, not if, laws expand.”

14 November 2024

MPs reopen inquiry into DWP safeguarding failures that led to countless deaths

Relatives of disabled people whose deaths were caused by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) have welcomed the decision by a committee of MPs to relaunch an inquiry into the department’s years of safeguarding failures.

The Commons work and pensions committee announced this week that it had reopened an inquiry that had to be abandoned in May when the government called a general election.

The Safeguarding Vulnerable Claimants inquiry was set up to examine whether DWP has a duty to safeguard “vulnerable people”, and if it does not, whether it should.

The committee says the reopened inquiry will now “seek to understand how the new government intends to rise to the challenge of ensuring it supports those who find it difficult to interact with the benefit system”.

The committee’s inquiry received 78 pieces of written evidence, and held four oral evidence sessions, with evidence received from families of disabled people whose deaths were caused by DWP’s actions, disabled claimants, disabled people’s organisations, lawyers, academics, safeguarding and welfare rights experts, ministers, and charities.

It was the first serious public investigation into DWP safeguarding since reports of deaths linked to the department’s actions first began emerging in the early years of the 2010-15 Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government.

As part of the inquiry, the committee carried out a survey of DWP staff, which found that two-thirds of them still do not have enough time to deal with safeguarding concerns “carefully” and “correctly”, despite years of deaths of benefit claimants linked with DWP’s failings.

The inquiry was launched in July 2023 when the committee was chaired by Labour MP Sir Stephen Timms, who is now minister for social security and disability and is likely to have to respond to the inquiry’s final report.

The committee will now be contacting witnesses who previously gave evidence to ask if they need to update their evidence.

A spokesperson for the committee, now chaired by Labour MP Debbie Abrahams, said it had not yet decided whether to hold further evidence sessions.

Alison Burton, whose father-in-law Errol Graham starved to death after DWP wrongly stopped his benefits when he missed a work capability assessment, said she was “definitely glad” the inquiry had been reopened.

She gave evidence about his case to the committee at a virtual round-table evidence session, and she said the safeguarding issues raised by the inquiry “still continue to affect people”.

She made it clear to the committee that DWP needed to have a legal duty of care to those receiving benefits.

She told Disability News Service (DNS): “I think if they had one it would go a long way to resolve a lot of the issues.”

Burton said such a duty of care would force the department to review all its practices “because there are plenty of practices within the department that would not comply with a duty of care”.

Among them, she said, would be the department’s continuing resistance to obtaining further medical evidence for many claimants – including her father-in-law – particularly for those with mental distress.

She said: “If the department had a duty of care, they would have to obtain further medical evidence because it would be part of their duty of care.”

She is convinced that if DWP had had such a duty at the time and had obtained further medical evidence in her father-in-law’s case, he would still be alive.

Yesterday (Wednesday), work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall suggested to the committee that she was open to the idea of DWP being given a legal safeguarding duty (see separate story).

Joy Dove, whose daughter Jodey Whiting took her own life in February 2017, 15 days after she had her out-of-work disability benefits wrongly stopped for missing a work capability assessment, also welcomed the committee’s decision to reopen the inquiry and said she was “eagerly awaiting the outcome”.

She highlighted how a report by the Independent Case Examiner found that DWP failed five times to follow its own safeguarding rules in the weeks leading up to her daughter’s suicide, despite her long history of mental distress.

Even though a “flag” was placed on DWP’s ESA system to alert staff that she was a “vulnerable” claimant because of her mental ill-health, DWP failed to refer her request for a home assessment to Maximus, the company that was carrying out WCAs on its behalf.

Maximus also failed to act on her request, even though it had been included in the ESA50 questionnaire she had filled out.

Grassroots groups of disabled people, such as Black Triangle, Disabled People Against Cuts, the Mental Health Resistance Network, and the Spartacus network, spent years highlighting deaths linked to DWP’s actions.

Concerns have also been raised by relatives such as Burton and Dove who have called for action after the deaths of their family members.

Some of the evidence linking DWP with the deaths of benefit claimants has come through prevention of future deaths reports written by coroners, several of which only emerged years after they were written.

Other evidence of persistent DWP safeguarding flaws has emerged through freedom of information requests to the department, which have revealed how hundreds of recommendations for improvements have been made by DWP’s own secret reviews into the deaths of claimants.

Some of these reviews showed DWP staff continuing to make the same fatal errors, year after year.

The evidence collected by DNS and others, stretching back more than a decade, has shown how DWP repeatedly ignored recommendations to improve the safety of its disability benefits assessment system, leading to countless avoidable deaths.

It also shows how DWP hid evidence from independent reviews, and how the department failed to keep track of the actions taken in response to recommendations made by its own secret reviews.

Evidence also demonstrates that the cultural problems within DWP extend far beyond the assessment system, touching all aspects of its dealings with disabled people in the social security system.

The evidence, compiled over the last decade by DNS and other journalists, academics and activists, shows systemic negligence by DWP, a culture of cover-up and denial, and a refusal to accept that the department has a duty of care to those disabled people claiming support through the social security system.

Much of that evidence has been brought together in a detailed timeline, as part of the Deaths by Welfare project headed by Dr China Mills and supported by Healing Justice Ldn, which works with marginalised and oppressed communities.

Meanwhile, the anti-poverty charity Turn2us has launched a free online tool that aims to simplify the application process for personal independence payment (PIP), the disability benefit which contributes towards the extra costs associated with an impairment or health condition.

The Turn2us PIP Helper offers step-by-step guidance, an eligibility checker, PIP award estimations, mental wellbeing resources, and essential information.

One of the reasons for developing the tool was to help disabled people obtain some of the £870 million in PIP payments that go unclaimed every year because of people who start claims but do not complete them or who are eligible for higher payments but are not receiving them.

One of the project partners is Disability Rights UK, which said it hoped the tool would “ensure as many disabled people as possible can access the appropriate PIP award”.

The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, John Pring’s book on the deaths linked to DWP, is published by Pluto Press 

14 November 2024

Co-op faces discrimination claims over inaccessible fridges

A major supermarket chain has been accused of discrimination after installing chilled food cabinets with inaccessible doors, preventing many of its disabled customers accessing fresh produce.

Co-op has installed the inaccessible chiller cabinets in at least two of its stores, but refused this week to say how many others were affected, or if it was rolling them out across its business.

The concerns were first raised by disabled activist Flick Williams, from York, who said the discriminatory action by her local Co-op had made it impossible for her to shop independently.

She said it appeared to be a trend among major supermarket chains.

When she visited her local Co-op in Hull Road last week for the first time in a couple of months, she found it had placed doors on the fridges, which meant she was unable to reach the fruit and vegetables, meat and fish, fruit juices and cheese, puddings and ready meals.

There were also no staff available to help her.

She said her reaction when she realised what the store had done was “absolute dismay because it’s happening everywhere, and I can envisage a time where every single supermarket is the same and I literally have nowhere to shop”.

She told Disability News Service (DNS): “Essentially, they have made it inaccessible for me to shop independently.

“I have no-one else who can shop for me and my 90-year-old mother. It’s really, really depressing me.”

She has tried home deliveries but says she should not have to pay a delivery charge, while the fresh produce that was delivered was poor quality, and she had substitute products imposed on her that she did not want.

Williams said: “It seems that they do not value the purple and grey pound.

“A lot of older people who wouldn’t necessarily identify as disabled are really going to struggle as well.

“Why are they alienating such a huge demographic, a huge part of their customer base?

“We really don’t all have friends and family who can shop for us, and why should we resort to that? Shopping is a basic necessity of life.”

Fellow disabled activist Tony Jennings said Co-op had also installed “discriminatory” enclosed fridges at his local store in Market Street, Ulverston, Cumbria, after a refurbishment.

He told DNS the changes had made the store inaccessible to him – breaching the Equality Act – if he wants to shop for chilled produce as there are often no staff available to help him.

And even if there were staff, he said, he does not want “to trail around the store after a member of non-existent staff – I simply want the Co-op not to introduce barriers preventing me from shopping independently”.

Although the refurbishment widened the aisles and made the checkouts more accessible, it also installed the bank of inaccessible, enclosed chiller cabinets, with doors that open outwards and handles that are too high to reach.

He could previously access the chilled produce independently but now he cannot.

He said older people had also complained that the chiller doors were heavy and difficult to hold open, as they will be for anyone with energy-limiting conditions, particularly as there are now “chillers all down one side of the store”.

He said: “I’m all for saving energy but chillers must be accessible to everyone.

“The Co-op’s appalling discriminatory attitude, installing inaccessible chillers, has alienated disabled shoppers and excluded them from their stores – what are they going to do about it?”

Co-op refused to say why it had installed the new enclosed fridges; whether it had consulted disabled people before doing so; what action it would take to address the discrimination; whether it assessed the equality impact of the closed cabinets before installing them; and how many stores it planned to install them in.

But a Co-op spokesperson said in a statement: “We are fully committed to making our stores accessible and inclusive for all customers and understand accessibility needs differ for everyone.

“Our store colleagues always aim to assist our members and customers as they require it, and anyone requiring support is urged to ask our team members for assistance.

“We are, however, sorry that the customer could not find a colleague to help on this occasion.

“We provide regular colleague guidance and work with disability organisations and our suppliers to meet the diverse needs of our communities.”

14 November 2024

Elections watchdog criticises political parties for failing on accessible manifestos

The elections watchdog has criticised political parties that failed to produce their general election manifestos in accessible formats.

The Electoral Commission has also highlighted how disabled candidates were still not able to secure government funding to support them with their access needs during the election campaign.

It raises the concerns in its report on July’s general election and May’s local elections, which was published yesterday (Wednesday).

Disability News Service reported in June how some of the main political parties fighting the general election had still not published accessible versions of their manifestos, just a week before polling day.

The worst offenders from the main parties were Reform UK, followed by the Green party, the SNP and the Conservatives.

The commission said at the time that it had previously recommended that accessible versions should be published at the same time as the main manifestos.

It says in this week’s report that political parties “routinely fail to provide information about their policies in accessible formats” and that disabled people “should have just as much time as anyone else to understand what the parties stand for”.

It also highlights how disabled election candidates still cannot access financial support to help with their access needs.

It points to the previous Access to Elected Office Fund, which was set up by the coalition government in 2012 but then closed down three years later.

A temporary fund followed in 2018, covering some elections in 2019, 2020 and 2021, before it was closed, and the last government repeatedly promised to set up a replacement.

Although similar schemes have been set up for devolved elections in Wales and Scotland, there is no support for disabled candidates at general elections or in other elections in England.

The report says: “A similar scheme could be set up for reserved elections to remove barriers to candidates engaging in the democratic process, and to ensure voters can hear from a range of campaigners.”

The report also says that more could be done to raise awareness of the support available for disabled voters in polling stations.

It says: “Although Returning Officers provided a range of accessibility equipment and support at polling stations, many people were not aware of the assistance available to them.”

Of those polling station staff who returned an Electoral Commission survey, “almost all” of them “provided most items from the list of equipment that should be provided as a minimum” for disabled voters.

Where polling stations said the minimum equipment was not provided, it was “nearly always” where the equipment was not needed, such as when the polling station did not have any parking available or did not need to have ramps.

Some polling stations went “beyond” the minimum, says the report, by providing additional support such as devices to access the ballot paper in audio format, or a hearing loop.

The commission’s research also found that almost all disabled adults (96 per cent) who voted in person said it was easy to get inside the polling station and vote.

Of those disabled people who voted in person, one in 20 said they needed additional assistance or equipment.

Of this group, about one in five (19 per cent) said the assistance or equipment they needed was not available to them at the polling station.

And about one in 10 disabled voters (nine per cent) said the way elections are run at present prevents them voting in person.

The report recommends that more is done to improve awareness of the support available for disabled voters in polling stations, including placing information on poll cards and local authority websites.

The Electoral Commission’s survey of candidates also found that more than half (55 per cent) of those who responded felt they had experienced harassment, intimidation, or abuse during the election campaign, while more than one in 10 (13 per cent) said they had had a serious problem with abuse.

Disabled candidates who responded were twice as likely to have been physically attacked, hit, or have something thrown at them compared to non-disabled candidates (10 per cent versus five per cent).

They were also slightly more likely to have received social media abuse than non-disabled candidates (60 per cent compared with 51 per cent).

An Electoral Commission spokesperson said: “On manifestos, we have a long-standing recommendation that when political parties publish manifestos, they should make sure accessible formats are available at the same time, so that disabled people have just as much time as anyone else to understand what parties stand for.”

She said that, although the report made no recommendation on the need for funding for disabled candidates, and some other areas of electoral law that need to be improved, “we continue to work closely with the UK government, including through the Accessibility of Elections Working Group convened by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, to take forward other areas of work”.

14 November 2024

Research shows how transport bodies could add accessibility into vital planning tool

Transport bodies planning station upgrades could take easy steps that would allow them to take greater account of accessibility when deciding where to invest, new research commissioned by disabled people has shown.

The research, published yesterday (Wednesday) by the disabled-led campaigning organisation Transport for All (TfA), shows that a key measure used by Transport for London to measure public access to the capital’s transport network does not take account of accessibility.

But if accessibility factors were included in the Public Transport Access Level (PTAL) measure, it could help a “wide range” of organisations, including transport bodies and developers, measure the impact of their proposals on disabled people, and reach different conclusions about where they should invest.

• This could help direct organisations like Transport for London (TfL) to prioritise investment in local areas that have no other accessible public transport options, the research found.

PTAL is used by TfL to rate different locations in the capital on how easy it is for people to access the public transport network, and it takes account of walking distance to the nearest stations or stops; waiting-times; the number of services; and the distance to major rail stations.

But PTAL ignores the accessibility of transport services, and factors such as step-free access, the level of crowding, availability of toilets, and provision of information.

Yesterday’s report, Accessibility Review of the PTAL Index, found that a new Accessible Public Transport Access Level (APTAL) measurement could provide “substantially different” results than PTAL.

Initial research highlighted barriers faced by disabled passengers such as a lack of step-free access; overcrowding; lack of staff; the inability to secure wheelchairs on buses or trains; a lack of priority seating; driver and passenger attitudes; inadequate information; and poor quality pavements and road surfaces.

Disabled people who use public transport and took part in the study told researchers that step-free access was the most important measure to be added to APTAL because for many disabled people “it is the difference between being able to access a station versus not at all”.

The level of crowding was the second-most important measure because “disorientation, noise levels, and difficulty finding space in lifts were acknowledged as affecting a diverse range of people”.

They also looked at access to toilet facilities at stations.

Some potential measures could not be added to the APTAL model for the report because of the lack of suitable publicly-available data.

• The research found that including each of the three new measures “significantly changes the score” given to the three central London locations the report examined.
• Map-based graphics in the report show how the areas around King’s Cross with higher scores for access to public transport shrink drastically when including accessibility data on crowding, step-free access and availability of toilets, as they do for Soho and, to a lesser extent, Southwark.
• The researchers concluded: “Accessibility is complex. However, it is possible to measure some aspects of accessibility in a simple and straightforward way.
• “In the future a more accessible PTAL could be used to prioritise investments like station upgrades.”
• Deborah Persaud, TfA’s chair, who took part in the research, said: “London should be a city for everyone, but current planning systems effectively bar disabled people from parts of the city.
• “It’s time Transport for London added accessibility to planning, so London can start to be truly open to us all.”
• Caroline Russell, a Green Party member of the London Assembly, who supported the report, said she hoped it would provide “a much-needed blueprint for improving the way we address and expand accessibility measures in our planning policy”.
• Alex Williams, TfL’s chief customer and strategy officer, said: “Our vision is a London where everyone can move around the city safely, comfortably and sustainably, and access to public transport is fundamental to this.
• “We are working continually to make our network as accessible as possible, but we know there is much more work to be done.
• “We welcome this report from Transport for All and will be carefully reviewing its recommendations.”
• TfL said that more than a third of Tube stations across the capital are step-free, while the mayor, Sadiq Khan, has set a goal of making half of all stations step-free by 2030.
• In January, the mayor announced investment in toilet provision of £3 million per year over five years across the TfL network.
• TfL also said that its new Equity in Motion plansets out more than 80 commitments to make its network fairer, more accessible and more inclusive.

The research for TfA was carried out by Revealing Reality and Frontier Economics, and it was funded by the Motability Foundation charity.

Catherine Marris, Motability Foundation’s head of innovation and policy, said the report provides “new insight into how public transport networks can be made accessible to all, and crucially it is based on user research carried out with disabled people”.

She said the report “adds to the evidence base we have on why accessibility needs to be at the heart of future transport planning, and we look forward to continuing to influence for change in this area”.

14 November 2024

Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week

Schools should not turn away “difficult” pupils over fears they will harm their results, and face being evaluated on how inclusive they are towards local children, Ofsted’s chief inspector of schools has said. Sir Martyn Oliver, the head of Ofsted, told England’s school leaders that there will be a focus on inclusion in the report card-style inspection reports to be introduced next year: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/nov/08/ofsted-schools-inspection-difficult-pupils-inclusion

Civil servants are looking at the extra costs that assisted dying would impose on the NHS, amid a warning from Wes Streeting that some services may be cut to fund expanded end-of-life care. The health secretary has asked officials at the Department of Health and Social Care to analyse potential implications for NHS services if the right to an assisted death is legalised in England and Wales: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/nov/13/assisted-dying-law-nhs-cuts-wes-streeting

The son of a man with motor neurone disease who died while waiting for a wheelchair from the NHS’s leading provider has accused them of “sincerely failing his dad”. Over the past 12 months, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman has seen a sharp rise in complaints about NHS wheelchairs: https://www.itv.com/news/2024-11-08/not-fit-for-purpose-patients-wait-years-for-wheelchairs-from-nhs-provider

A pub called The Midget after an iconic MG car is changing its name following complaints that it is offensive. More than 1,000 people signed a petition to rename the pub in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, which is owned by the Greene King chain. The petition was started by Dr Erin Pritchard, a disability lecturer at Liverpool Hope University, who has dwarfism: https://metro.co.uk/2024/11/08/pub-forced-change-name-people-complain-offensive-21954413/

14 November 2024

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

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