Questions For The Government Over Special Needs Funding
Over at Left Foot Forward, Laurence Turner has questions for the Government over special needs funding in schools. I’m linking to the post because I thought it might interest some of you.
Laurie Penny On Jody McIntyre
I am very pleased to link to this brilliant article by Laurie Penny at the New Statesman. She says what I have been trying to say- about Jody McIntyre and others like us being real people with real views on things that really matter- and she says it much better than I can right now. Thank you, Laurie, the mainstream world and journalism need many more like you.
Now Jody McIntyre’s Being Attacked For His Views On Palestine
Thanks to Sunny Hundal, who has posted at his Eastern issues blog, Pickled Politics, a round-up of articles in which Jody McIntyre is being attacked for his views on Palestine.
As I pointed out yesterday on Left Foot Forward, McIntyre has simply shown the mainstream world that disabled people do have views on politics and current issues, wheelchairs or not. This is something for which McIntyre should be applauded, not criticised by people who don’t know the first thing about him!
Jody McIntyre Responds In The Guardian
The Guardian have interviewed Jody McIntyre. In the interview, among other things, he reveals that he wasn’t surprised at the tone of Ben Brown’s interview on the BBC. I’m pleased to link to the article. Jody is a real inspiration to people with any DisAbility.
If You Thought The Students Were Trouble, Wait For the Disability Movement, Says John McTernan
John McTernan has written a brilliant post today at the Telegraph blog. In it, he makes the very good point that disability rights campaigners are more trouble than students. He says Jody McIntyre’s interview with the BBC has shown the public that modern disability rights campaigners are ‘articulate and media savvy’ and that they are only just getting started on protesting at the benefit cuts that will directly affect their lives.
I agree with every word of his post. Being a disabled person, I know several Disability Rights campaigners both online and off, and I don’t think for a second that any of them will be slienced by fear. I’ve seen all my life that no one can fight battles like Disability Rights campaigners. So, Coalition government, if you thought we were an easy target, think again. In fact, Disabled People Against Cuts are protesting in Central London as I type!
Mark Steel On Jody McIntyre
The imagined conversation between the police in this article made me literally laugh out loud. Those are what I call funny disability-related jokes. Frankie Boyle, are you reading this?
The police like to set their public relations department a special Christmas challenge, don’t they? Because that’s the only explanation for them being filmed on the anti-fees demonstration, chucking a disabled man out of his wheelchair and shoving him along the road, unless it was to enjoy telling their PR team, “Stick a positive spin on that for us, could you?”
Ben Brown of the BBC tried his best, when he interviewed Jody McIntyre, the man who was dislodged, and said aggressively: “There’s a suggestion that you were rolling in the direction of the police.” Now, let’s suppose this was the case (which I can’t help but doubt), how much force is needed, I wonder, to stop a man with cerebral palsy who keeps rolling, even when asked to stop?
Presumably the police turned to each other in shock, spluttering: “Oh my God, he’s rolling straight for us. These riot shields and helmets with visors offer woefully inadequate protection against such a persistent rolling machine. If we’re lucky our batons can buy us some time, but his momentum is terrifying, it’s like a cerebral palsy tsunami.”
Maybe this is how to win in Afghanistan. We recruit a multiple sclerosis battalion to roll mercilessly through Helmand province and the Taliban will run away shrieking in fear.
Even as they showed the film on the news, Ben Brown said it “appeared to show Mr Mcintyre being pulled from his wheelchair”, with a lingering ambiguous “appeared”, as if he was going to add: “but it turned out to be a stunt staged by Derren Brown. We were misled by the power of suggestion, and when you look more closely you can see it’s a butterfly landing on a petal.”
This process started on the day of the demonstration, when live footage of mounted police charging into the crowd and swinging batons was accompanied by a reporter saying: “It looks as if the crowd are getting restless.” This is a common disorder among news reporters, which ought to have a name such as “Confused Baton Charge Back-to-Front Bashed and Basher Syndrome”. Sufferers would make novel boxing commentators, saying: “Audley Harrison is lashing out with tremendous aggression there as he stares with a blank, concussed expression into the paramedic’s torch.”
They might also consider Alfie Meadows, who was so restless he ended up in hospital in a critical condition, having a brain operation after being whacked with a police truncheon. It has also emerged that, when he arrived there, the police insisted he should be taken somewhere else as that hospital was to be used only by their officers. So there seems to be a misunderstanding of how hospitals work, with the Metropolitan Police under the impression they have the same system as restaurants. So you arrive unconscious, then a porter says, “Do you have a reservation?” But if it’s busy you get told, “I’m sorry sir, we’re fully booked this evening. The police have taken all three wards I’m afraid, but if you survive the night you’re welcome to see if we’ve a brain surgeon available tomorrow.”
And yet most coverage of the demonstration has surrounded the violence of the students. Maybe this is because most reporters and politicians believe with such fervour the police are innately honourable, and demonstrators are troublesome, they can’t help but see such a one-sided view. But imagine the uproar if a policeman had needed a brain operation after being hit by a student, or if students announced that following recent events they were investigating getting a water cannon, or that a reporter might angrily ask Camilla, “But there’s been a suggestion you were rolling towards the demonstrators.”
Or maybe the incident with Jody McIntyre is nothing to do with students, and this is the new test for anyone on disability benefit. The police sling you on the floor, poke you about a bit, and if you manage to roll anywhere, there is clearly nothing wrong with you and you get your payments cut.
Jody McIntyre Responds In The Independent
Jody McIntyre has written a post for the Independent blogs saying that the student fee protest was not the first time he has fought for equality. It’s good to see him responding to the Daily Fail and the BBC so publicly. I’m pleased to link to the post.
Roy Greenslade On Jody McIntyre
After reading this article, I can’t believe Roy Greenslade writes for the usually sensitive Guardian. If this is his attitude, I think he should consider transferring to the Daily Mail. Starting yesterday.
I see from a story in today’s Independent that the Press Complaints Commission received more than 500 complaints about an article by Richard Littlejohn.
This has prompted the PCC to contact Jody McIntyre, a disabled man who claims he was badly treated during the tuition fees protests, to ask whether he wishes to make a formal complaint about Littlejohn’s Daily Mail column.
Littlejohn began by contending that McIntyre – who has cerebral palsy – “put himself on offer and his brother pushed him into the front line. It’s not as if he didn’t know there was going to be trouble.”
He then satirised McIntyre’s situation by suggesting that he resembled the comic disabled character, Andy Pipkin, played by Matt Lucas, in the Little Britain series.
To make his point he parodied an Andy-style script that began: “Where do you want to go today, Jody?”… “Riot.” I’ll spare you the rest.
Anyway, a routine storm of outrage followed on Twitter, inevitably leading to the PCC complaints. I have no problem with the PCC’s reaction. It would be damned if it didn’t contact McIntyre.
But the result, should he complain, is a foregone conclusion. There was no factual inaccuracy. Littlejohn is a columnist. He has a right to be offensive, even obnoxious. That’s his job.
His piece was not based on a prejudice against McIntyre because of his disability (nor was he exhibiting a prejudice against all disabled people). If so, I would take a different view.
In this case, I sincerely hope that McIntyre is sensible enough to ignore any pressure to complain.
I heard a quote on Question Time last week that I really liked, and that I think Greenslade, Littlejohn and friends need to be reminded of. It was: “Freedom of speech doesn’t give you the right to shout ‘fire!’ in a crowded theatre.’
And where does Greenslade get the idea that Littlejohn’s piece was not based on prejudice against McIntyre’s disability? I’m sure any one of the people who wrote to the PCC will agree with me that that’s exactly what it was.
Ian Murphy
A man brain damaged at birth due to complications has been awarded a £5.7m payout from health chiefs.
Ian Murphy, 33, from Oxford, was left with severe disabilities when he was born at the John Radcliffe Hospital.
Mr Murphy, who is wheelchair dependent, was awarded the sum by a High Court judge earlier. His family said the money would help with his care costs.
A spokesman for South Central Strategic Health Authority issued an apology to Mr Murphy and his family.
Mr Murphy has been cared for by his parents and sister since he was born at the hospital in September 1977.
His mother said: “A claim was not brought earlier because my husband and I were very involved in Ian’s everyday care and did not realise that such a claim was possible until we sought advice about suitable accommodation for Ian.”
Tory Councillor Implies Jody McIntyre Is Lying About His Disability
Thanks to Liberal Conspiracy.
Ealing Councillor Phil Taylor implies that Jody McIntyre is lying about his disability:
McIntyre is not being particularly honest though. Although he presents himself as a cerebral palsy victim in a wheelchair he does not mention that by his own account he walked up the 9 stories of stairs of the 30 Millbank building during the student riots of 10th November.
Phil Taylor adds:
The police are entitled I think to start pushing and shoving when hostile and potentially violent protestors will not move out of their way. McIntyre is using his disability as a stick to beat the police with.
As Sunny rightly says, Phil Taylor does not consider how long Jody McIntyre took to climb the stairs, or that he had support from friends and a rail.
I am shocked by Phil Taylor’s attitude. I have Cerebral Palsy. I can walk up stairs with support. I also use a wheelchair in crowds the size of ones at protests. This does not mean I am not disabled. And to say the police are entitled to push and shove- don’t get me started.
Richard Littlejohn’s ‘Cartoon’ On Jody McIntyre Prompts At Least 500 complaints To PCC
A Richard Littlejohn column in the Daily Mail that compared student fees protester Jody McIntyre to Matt Lucas’s Little Britain creation Andy has prompted 500 complaints to the Press Complaints Commission.
Police launched an internal investigation after footage appeared to show McIntyre being pulled out of his wheelchair and dragged across the road by an officer during last Thursday’s demonstration in central London.
Littlejohn said if McIntyre was “looking for sympathy he’s come to the wrong place”. Littlejohn described McIntyre as “like Andy from Little Britain” before imagining a spoof dialogue between McIntyre – as Andy – and David Walliams’s Lou.
A BBC News channel interview with McIntyre also prompted a “considerable” number of complaints from viewers, who said interviewer Ben Brown asked inappropriate and “insensitive” questions.
Protests against Littlejohn’s column gained momentum today on Twitter, where people posted a link for the Press Complaints Commission, echoing – to date on a much smaller scale – the response to fellow Mail columnist Jan Moir’s piece on Stephen Gately last year.
One tweeter described Littlejohn as “shameful [for] mocking the disabled”. Another, referring to the Mail’s coverage of Frankie Boyle’s joke on Channel 4 about Katie Price’s son, said: “When Frankie Boyle makes jokes about disabled people, the Mail complains. When Littlejohn does it, the Mail prints it.”
A spokesman for the PCC said it had received around 500 complaints and was looking to contact McIntyre directly. It has not yet launched a formal investigation into the article.
The BBC News channel controller, Kevin Bakhurst, said the corporation had received a “consider number of complaints” from viewers about the Brown interview, which aired on the channel on Monday evening.
“I am aware that there is a web campaign encouraging people to complain to the BBC about the interview, the broad charge being that Ben Brown was too challenging in it,” said Bakhurst in a blog post on the BBC website.
“However I am genuinely interested in hearing more from people who have complained about why they object to the interview. I would obviously welcome all other views.
“I have reviewed the interview a few times and I would suggest that we interviewed Mr McIntyre in the same way that we would have questioned any other interviewee in the same circumstances: it was quite a long interview and Mr McIntyre was given several minutes of airtime to make a range of points, which he did forcefully; Ben challenged him politely but robustly on his assertions.
“Mr McIntyre says during the interview that ‘personally he sees himself equal to anyone else’ and we interviewed Mr McIntyre as we would interview anyone else in his position.”
A spokeswoman for the BBC declined to reveal how many complaints the corporation had received about the interview, saying it was not policy to do so when there was “obvious evidence of lobbying”.
Toby Young On Jody McIntyre
I must thank Toby Young for making very good points about the Jody McIntyre case in the Telegraph today.
Toby Young thinks, as most other sensible people do, that the way in which Jody McIntyre was treated by the police on Thursday afternoon was very wrong. However, he does not agree with those who are criticising BBC News broadcaster Ben Brown for asking McIntyre unfair questions on the BBC News Channel last night.
As Young rightly points out:
He may look a bit callous for not making allowances for the fact that McIntyre suffers from Cerebral Palsy and just treating him as he would any other interviewee, but that’s exactly how the interview should have been conducted. For Brown not to hold McIntyre to the same standard as he would any other person on the programme because he’s disabled would be deeply patronising. After all, there’s nothing wrong with McIntyre’s brain.
As a person who has spent a few too many years trying to tell the mainstream world that there is nothing wrong with the brains of people with Cerebral Palsy- or any physical disability- I have to agree completely with Young on this. I am very pleasantly surprised to find a person who doesn’t, as far as I know, have a disability himself being able to understand this and to make this point so well.
Young adds that McIntyre says himself in the interview that he sees himself as the equal of anybody else and expects to be treated in that way. So, reading this post has made me wonder if McIntyre himself really had a problem with Brown’s questions- or if he was simply glad to have been given a chance to express his opinion, and to be treated as any other interviewee would have been treated, knowing that those who really matter- the mainstream- were listening. I would be very interested to have an answer from McIntyre on that!
Richard Littlejohn On Jody McIntyre
I want to go to the demo…
Wheelchair-bound Jody Mcintyre has complained that he was beaten and manhandled by police during last week’s student fees protests.
But if he’s looking for sympathy, he’s come to the wrong place.
A man in a wheelchair is as entitled to demonstrate as anyone else. But he should have kept a safe distance.
Don’t like it: Wheelchair-bound Jody McIntyre was wrong to complain about being mistreated at the student protests
Mcintyre put himself on offer and his brother pushed him into the front line. It’s not as if he didn’t know there was going to be trouble.
He was also at the last student demo in London and persuaded friends to hoist him on to the roof of the Millbank Tower. If his brakes had failed and he’d gone over the edge, who would he have blamed then?
Jody Mcintyre is like Andy from Little Britain.
‘Where do you want to go today, Jody?’
‘Riot.’
‘Are you sure? Wouldn’t you rather go to hear Bob Crow speak at the Methodist Central Hall. You like Bob Crow.’
‘Yeah, I know.’
‘So, we’ll go there, eh?’
‘Riot!’
‘Ken Livingstone will be there, too. He’s your favourite.’
‘Riot!’
‘All right, then.’
Five minutes later at the riot . . .
‘Don’t like it.’
Jody McIntyre BBC Interview
Yesterday’s BBC interview with Jody McIntyre, the student fee protestor, blogger and journalist who has CP, is now on YouTube. It’s been going around Twitter since yesterday- disabled people are not happy at all at the way he was treated by the BBC interviewer. The video’s below, so you can see it for yourselves if you haven’t already.
I wish Jody success with any legal action he takes against the police force.
Email David Cameron On DLA Reforms
The Broken Of Britain have put together this message that can be emailed to David Cameron if you click here. Can I ask my UK readers to take a second to send it, please.
Dear Prime Minister,
This e-mail is for your information. I will contact other Ministers in separately.
I am writing to urge you to instruct the Minister for Disabled People to recall the Public Consultation on Disability Living Allowance (DLA) reform, and to cease work on reform of this benefit, due to serious flaws in the consultation paper. As such, the consultation questions are deeply skewed and any answers will be likely to support wholesale reform. This is both unfair and unwise, and will cause hardship for many disabled people. Read a fuller argument at http://thebrokenofbritain.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=talk&action=display&thread=292
I strongly advise you withdraw these policies. I hope that you will not construe this as a threat, but I suggest that you remember that there are 11 million disabled people in the UK. Our voting intentions will be strongly influenced by the fate of DLA. Remember also that the Conservatives fought the election on a pledge to protect DLA.
Independent Living Fund To Close Permanently By 2015
A fund which supports more than 21,000 people with severe disabilities is to be phased out by 2015.
The £359m Independent Living Fund pays out an average of £300 a week, to help people pay for carers so they can live at home and not in a care home.
It was already shut to new applicants for this year and will now shut to new claims permanently, said the minister for disabled people, Maria Miller.
Payments to existing users are to continue until 2015.
Ms Miller said: “An independent discretionary trust delivering social care is financially unsustainable.”
But Richard Hawkes, chief executive of disability charity Scope, said the decision to phase out the fund was “bemusing”.
“The fund is comparatively very small and is designed to support disabled people to live at home rather than in care homes,” he said.
“It’s hard to see how phasing out this fund will do anything but narrow down options and push people towards greater dependence on the state.”
The phased closure was described as “foolhardy and lacking in humanity” by Labour peer Lord Morris of Manchester.
Lord Morris, who was the first minister for the disabled, said: “This will not save money. If you make it harder for disabled people to live at home, it will cost more because more of them will have to be in hospitals and other places of full-time care.
“It will mean far more of them having to be in institutional care at far greater cost to the taxpayer.”
Petition To Maria Miller To Recall The Public Consultation On DLA Reform
I’ve just heard about this petition to Maria Miller, the Minister For Disabled People, asking her to recall the public consultation on DLA reform. I fully support this. Can I ask all my UK readers to sign it, please.
The Broken Of Britain Features In One In Four Magazine
I’ve just read an article on the website of mental health publication One In Four magazine about how The Broken Of Britain was born. Well done to my fellow disability blogger BendyGirl for spreading the word about this brilliant idea just a little bit further!
Frankie Boyle And Harvey Price: A Special Parent Responds
Thanks must go out to @humphreycushion who Tweeted a link to this great post earlier today. The post is special father Paul Saxton’s reaction to Frankie Boyle’s recent disablist remarks against Harvey Price. It’s well worth a read.
Do any other special parents have thoughts to share on the incident? Please leave them in the comments below.
Canoeing And Triathlon Added To 2016 Paralympics
The International Paralympic Committee has voted to increase the number of sports at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games from 20 to 22.
The board decided to maintain the existing sports and add canoeing and triathlon to the programme.
Badminton, golf, powerchair football, taekwondo and basketball for athletes with learning disabilities also applied for inclusion but were unsuccessful.
The Rio Paralympic Games will take place from 7-18 September, 2016.
The decision was made at the IPC’s governing board meeting in China.
The 14 members of the board discussed the evaluations of both the seven applications and the 20 existing sports, and – with the exception of IPC chief executive Xavier Gonzalez – voted on which sports should be included for 2016.
The first vote found the governing board unanimously in favour of maintaining all 20 existing sports in the Rio 2016 programme. A second vote saw the group then decide to increase the number of sports in 2016 – seven were in favour and three against.
The board were then invited to vote on the recommendations provided to them by the IPC management team that only canoeing and triathlon should be considered for inclusion in a expanded sports programme. The board found in favour by six to four.
Jose Perurena Lopez, president of the International Canoe Federation, said: “This has been a key strategic project of the ICF over the last two years and we are delighted with this result.”
The British Triathlon Federation and the International Triathlon Union had launched a campaign which received widespread support.
Britain already has a strong reputation in the sport and won five medals, including four golds, in September’s ITU World Championship Grand Final in Budapest.
Jane Egan, Faye McClelland, Charlotte Ellis and Iain Dawson claimed golds in their respective classes with former Paralympic swimmer Clare Cunningham winning silver behind McClelland.
World and European champion, McClelland, said: “Having the opportunity to compete at the Paralympic Games has been a dream of mine for many years.
“The Paralympics is the ultimate accomplishment for disability sport and I am absolutely motivated and excited by the potential to race along the Copacabana in the Paralympic Games in Rio in 2016.”
Phil Lane, chief executive of ParalympicsGB, added: “We welcome the inclusion of triathlon and canoeing to the 2016 Paralympic Games. The sports have demonstrated a strong case and we welcome the expansion of the Paralympic family to include them.”
The last sport to be added to the schedule was rowing, which made its debut at the 2008 Games in Beijing.
Channel 4 Defend Frankie Boyle Over Repeat Showing Of His Comments About Harvey Price
Readers, where is the sensive, inclusive Channel 4 which screened Cast Offs just last year? Where are the people who promised us more coverage of the Paralympics than ever before in 2012? Where are the people who are searching for disabled presenters to present that coverage of the Paralympics? In fact, readers, if this is their attitude towards such obvious disablism, I’m starting to wonder why they even want to show the Paralympics at all. If they care about disability or disabled people at all, they are certainly not showing it in their current treatment of Katie Price and Frankie Boyle.
Channel 4 has defended the right of comedians to make jokes which “push boundaries” after reality TV star Katie Price complained about Frankie Boyle.
Price said Boyle’s joke about her disabled son Harvey was “vile” and she criticised Channel 4 for showing it again in a repeat.
Media regulator Ofcom has launched an investigation into the complaint.
The charity Mencap described Boyle’s joke as a “disgusting” attack on a disabled child.
Price said: “By repeating Frankie Boyle’s show, Channel 4 are embracing and exploiting discrimination.”
But Head of Comedy, C4, Shane Allen said: “We are aware that Frankie Boyle’s comedy can be very challenging which is why we have gone to careful lengths in scrutinising the material editorially, in scheduling the series appropriately and by giving clear and strong warnings into each of the programmes.
“We think that it is important that a space on terrestrial TV exists for comedy that takes risks and pushes boundaries and we stand by our original decision to broadcast the programme.”
Price responded by saying: “They are saying it is ok to ridicule people – even children – for disability in a way they would not dare over race or sexual orientation.
“The people who control the channel are endorsing this behaviour and it is disgusting. Even the fact that Ofcom are investigating the first broadcast has not made them divert from this path.
“This issue is not about me, other than Harvey is my son. This issue is about discrimination.”
She added: “By broadcasting these vile sexual comments about Harvey, and then insisting on repeating them, Channel Four are trying to take us back to an era when discrimination was accepted.
“They mustn’t be allowed to get away with it.”
She was supported by Mencap’s campaigns manager, Esther Foreman, who said: “It is disgusting that Frankie Boyle has chosen to target a child with a disability with these so-called jokes.
‘Dark ages’
“Ignorant views like this help to fuel the verbal and physical abuse that people with a disability, and their families, are regularly subjected to. Comedy like this takes us back to the dark ages.”
She said: “How can we eradicate negative stereotypes and expect the general public to treat people with a disability with the respect they deserve when such vile jokes are aired on national television?
“How can Channel 4 justify broadcasting this? The answers they have given so far are not satisfactory in the slightest?”
Boyle has become known for his controversial stand-up routines.
In April he had an on-stage argument with the mother of a child with Down’s syndrome after making fun of the condition.
In 2009, the BBC Trust said satirical gameshow Mock The Week breached editorial guidelines over a Boyle joke about the appearance of Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington.
Ofcom said a judgement made over Boyle’s comments would not be determined until the new year.
Jeff Brazier’s Brother Has CP
TV presenter Jeff Brazier’s 25-year-old brother Spencer has cerebral palsy and has always been cared for by their mother, Jeanette.
Jeff admits this hasn’t left her much time to herself, and it was something he set out to change earlier this year. He took three weeks out of his usual schedule and, followed by a BBC 3 film crew, he tried to help Spencer gain more direction and independence, and so take some of the pressure off their mother.
Speaking to the BBC video series Cause Celeb, Jeff talks openly about the challenges people with disabilities and their families face, and of his naivete in thinking his intervention would run smoothly.
Jeff Brazier: Me and My Brother can be seen on BBC 3 at 2100 GMT on Thursday 16 December.
OfCom Investigates Frankie Boyle’s Comments Against Harvey Price
Thank goodness. I hope the OfCom investigation leads to the programme and its presenter being taken off air forever.
Broadcasting watchdog Ofcom has launched an investigation into Frankie Boyle’s show after Katie Price complained about a joke he made about her disabled son.
Katie accused the comic of being a “bully” after he made comments about her son Harvey, who suffers from septo-optic dysplasia and autism, on his show Tramadol Nights.
A spokesman for Ofcom said: “We can confirm that we have received a complaint from Katie Price.”
They went on: “Having considered this and other viewers’ concerns, we have now launched an investigation into the show.”
Katie had previously announced that she had asked her lawyers to contact the watchdog if Channel 4 did not apologise.
A spokeswoman for the channel said: “Channel 4 has replied directly to Katie Price’s lawyer. Given this has now gone to Ofcom it would be inappropriate for us to comment further.”
In a statement put on her website yesterday, Katie described her son as “a little miracle”.
It continued: “If Mr Boyle had a 10th of his courage and decency he would know that to suggest, let alone think funny, that Harvey may sexually attack me is vile and deeply unfair.To bully this unbelievably brave child is despicable, to broadcast it on television is to show a complete and utter lack of judgment.”
A message at the beginning of Frankie’s programme, broadcast on Tuesday night, warned viewers the show contained “very strong language and uncompromising adult content”.
The Ofcom investigation is likely to consider whether the show broke sections of the Broadcasting Code about “generally accepted standards” of material which could be deemed offensive.
Coventry Female Gang Rob Blind Man Of £4000
A 61-year-old blind man was robbed of £4,000 by a group of women in a “sick and heartless” crime, police have said.
The theft happened in Coventry city centre on Tuesday, shortly after the man had withdrawn the money from the Nationwide in Broadgate at around 2pm.
A West Midlands Police spokeswoman said: “He was possibly followed out of the bank by three women who distracted him by taking him into a number of shops, asking him to try coats on.
“The man was left very disorientated when the women left him and found he had had the cash cut out of his coat pocket.”
Pc Mick Rhodes said: “This is a despicable crime. To prey on a vulnerable person like this is sick and heartless. Not only was he robbed, he was left very disorientated and distressed.
“I would encourage anyone with information about this theft to call us and remind anyone planning to take extra cash out of the bank over Christmas to be vigilant.”
Anyone with information is urged to contact CID in Coventry on 0345 113 5000 ext 7931 6245.
Many thanks to blogger Robert Stewart for writing this post about DisAbled journalist Jody McIntyre, who was pulled out of his wheelchair by riot police during yesterday’s tuition fee protests in Central London.
I hadn’t heard anything about this incident until I read the post linked above. Maybe I missed it being covered on the TV news last night, but I don’t think it’s been covered enough. I thought the point of having police at protests was so that they could keep all protestors and members of the public safe. Unfortunately, in this incident, it seems they were the ones causing the trouble.
Ben Clark Again
Ben Clark has always dreamt of Olympic gold.
A talented swimmer, he has trained with some of the top names in the sport, hoping one day to represent his country.
But in a split-second in July the 20-year-old’s life changed forever.
Ben, who had just returned from Australia where he was being coached and preparing for Commonwealth trials, was enjoying a day out at Sandbanks Beach, Poole.
Having swam there many times before, he dived into a wave, hit his head on a rock and broke his neck.
As an experienced swimmer and trained lifeguard Ben instantly knew what to do, and told those with him to get him out of the water and to keep him still.
“I think with all the training that I had it definitely helped me. I could be dead, I could be on a ventilator,” he said.
Having broken his C5 vertebra and fractured two others, he was taken to hospital before being transferred for emergency surgery in Southampton to rebuild his spine using bone from his hip.
Doctors said he may never regain movement from below his neck, but after intense rehabilitation he is sitting up in a wheelchair and has started to gain strength in his upper body.
Five months on he is back in the water with his eyes set Paralympic glory in 2012.
He undergoes specialist physiotherapy at the Duke of Cornwall’s Spinal Unit, Salisbury, and receives constant encouragement from his family and friends.
Ben admits that getting back into the pool at first was a daunting experience, but he remains determined about the future.
“I wasn’t really sure to begin with whether I was going to like it, but as soon as I got back in I knew this was where I was meant to be, it was my home,” he said.
“The only difference to me is that I feel I’m sitting all the time. I don’t want this to affect me in the slightest and I don’t think it ever will.
“I’ve always been determined throughout the whole of my life, I have to be with the sport I’m in.
“If you’re not determined then you are never going to get anywhere.”
As a boost during his stay in hospital, the swimmer received a visit from F1 driver Mark Webber, and has received messages of support from a number of swimming stars including Olympic champion Rebecca Adlington, Cassie Patton, Keri-Anne Payne and Paralympian Darren Kenny.
His mother, Pauline, said she was amazed at her son’s improvement and determination.
“The first day I saw him in the pool it did make me cry,” she said.
“It’s what he’s always done, it’s always been his dream since he was five-years-old when he first said to me, ‘Mum, I’m going to win an Olympic gold medal’.
“It looked like it had gone forever – but it looks like it’s coming back.”
Ben hopes he will be discharged from hospital in January, when he plans to move into his own flat and live an independent life.
He also hopes to inspire others in sport with disabilities with his charity, Chairs for Champions.
“I’m just going to train as hard as I can,” he said.
“I remember racing against Liam Tancock when I was about 14, now he’s world champion and I should be there too, there’s no reason why I can’t.
“2012 is two years away. Some people thing it’s short but I’m just going to do the best I can to make sure if I don’t get there, then I get to the next one.
“It’s been my goal forever, I want to be there and I want to be the best in the world at what I do.”
JustGiving Pages Of The Week: Wheels For Christmas!
Louis Farrell is about to turn 3. He’s also severely DisAbled. This Christmas, he’d like nothing better than a new set of wheels. His parents are the first of three families I’m featuring this week in my JustGiving Page Of The Week slot. If you’d like to help give Louis wheels for Christmas, please click on his JustGiving Page.
I have been following the story of Beatrice Howden closely since September. This July, Beatrice was diagnosed with a form of Spinal Muscular Atrophy. Like Louis, Beatrice wants a powered wheelchair, and her parents have been fundraising very hard for the last 3 months to get her one. If you’d like to help give Beatrice wheels for Christmas, please click on her father’s JustGiving Page.
Daniel Morgan, 10, has Cerebral Palsy. Just like Louis and Beatrice, he would love a new set of wheels this Christmas. If you’d like to help give Daniel wheels for Christmas, please click on his father’s JustGiving Page.
Disabled People Twice As Likely To Miss Out, Says Survey
Disabled people are almost twice as likely as able-bodied people not to be able to work, have a holiday or take courses according to a bleak assessment in the first official survey of people with disabilities since 1997.
The Life Opportunities Survey asked 18,000 people about the “social barriers” they faced in eight key areas of life and found many disabled people in Britain are living socially isolated, cash-strapped lives and struggling to participate in normal activities.
Large numbers of disabled people suffered from so much “anxiety and lack of confidence” that they struggled to lead a normal life.
The result is a startling gap between what able-bodied and disabled people could manage to do in life.
Almost a fifth of disabled adults felt so stressed that work was beyond them – compared with just 4% of the general population.
One in eight impaired adults felt so insecure they would not venture to take a long-distance train, compared with just one in 50 able-bodied people.
A disproportionately high number of disabled adults said they had limited engagement with the modern world and were unable to move freely, work or enjoy leisure pursuits.
In employment, 56% of adults with impairments experienced restrictions in “the type or work they did or the salary they were paid” compared with just 26% of the general population.
This income inequality severely disadvantaged those with disabilities. Almost a third of households with an adult with impairments said they could not afford a week away on holiday each year – compared with just one in five of other households.
Shockingly, 12% of adults with impairments experienced difficulty “accessing rooms within their home or difficulty getting in or out of their home” compared with just 1% of adults without impairments.
“We have to recognise that everybody faces social barriers but they are higher for people with impairments,” said Tom Howe, who heads the survey for the Office of National Statistics.
“I think some of these things are obvious, like transport. There’s no way you can get on a bus if you are in a wheelchair if the bus does not have a low floor designed for you.”
One of the salient points made by the survey is that disabled people appeared to struggle financially.
Almost double the number of households with a person who had an impairment found it hard to pay off loans compared with the 15% of general population.
An unexpected bill of £500 would leave 38% of impaired adults struggling compared with 26% of their able-bodied peers.
“It is hard to know whether this is because people with impairments have reduced incomes or because they have higher living costs,” said Howe.
Disability charities said the findings showed there was still a long way to go before disabled people in Britain could enjoy the same opportunities as non-disabled people.
Guy Parckar, acting director of policy and campaigns at Leonard Cheshire Disability, said: “The survey really highlights what the impact of inaccessibility and discrimination can be.
“When people face problems and barriers every day it not only reduces their opportunities, it can actually hold back their aspirations too.
“Disabled people are twice as likely to live in poverty as non-disabled people, and twice as likely to have no qualifications.
“Despite the improvements that there have been in terms of legislation, we are still a very long way from having genuine equal opportunities.”
The ONS study comes after the government this week published plans to replace the main benefit for the disabled, disability living allowance (DLA), with a new benefit – personal independence payment – that would have tighter eligibility criteria.
In the June budget, ministers had already said they wanted to reduce the number of working-age claimants of DLA, currently 1.8 million, by a fifth.
This would reduce yearly spending on the disabled by a little more than £1bn by 2014-15. Ministers say they “do not know” how many people will be affected by the proposed cut.
Campaigners said that these figures called into question the government’s strategy, as the “barriers” to participating in everyday life remained too high for disabled people.
“What the results show is that after more than a decade of economic growth disabled people still experience disadvantage across all aspects of life,” said Neil Coyle of Disability Alliance.
“As we’ve hit a downturn, disadvantage and exclusion are increasing – but, worryingly, the coalition government is choosing to slash support for disabled people.
“Time-limiting one benefit and restricting access to other support – including DLA, which helps disabled people with higher costs of living – will only impoverish and isolate disabled people and their families further.”
Richard Hawkes, chief executive of Scope, said the survey threw up some “interesting dilemmas” for the government.
He said: “The survey has revealed that nearly half of households where at least one person had an impairment are unable to afford expenses or make loan repayments.
“Disability living allowance was introduced to help disabled people meet the extra costs of living with a disability or impairment and allows many people to live their everyday lives as fully as possible.
“That is why it is also imperative that the government reverses its decision to continue with the withdrawal of the mobility component from disabled people in residential care.”
Maria Miller, minister for disabled people, said: “Although we have a strong legal framework to guarantee the rights of disabled people, for too many this has not yet translated into equality and independence in their everyday lives.
“We are clear in our commitment to disability equality and are now introducing Right to Control to put disabled people in charge of their own decision making.”
Right to Control is a shakeup of the way disabled people use state funding, allowing them to buy their own support services or equipment.
Frankie Boyle Vs Katie Price and Peter Andre
I am shocked to read this article. I agree with every word that Katie Price has said below about Harvey and Frankie Boyle. This should be reported to OfCom as soon as possible, by as many people as possible, and Frankie Boyle should never be allowed to perform in public anywhere again, because his disablism just gets worse. I, for one, hope that Katie Price does decide to take legal action against him, and that she wins her case.
Katie Price is consulting her lawyers after comedian Frankie Boyle made fun of her disabled son Harvey on his Channel 4 show Tramadol Nights.
Former Mock The Week star Boyle, 38, said on the show, which is watched by one million viewers : ‘Jordan and Peter Andre are still fighting each other over custody of Harvey – eventually one of them will lose and have to keep him.’
He then added: ‘I have a theory about the reason Jordan married a cage fighter – she needed a man strong enough to stop Harvey from f***ing her…’
‘I love him and am deeply proud to be his mother. If Mr Boyle had a 10th of his courage and decency he would know that to suggest, let alone think funny, that Harvey may sexually attack me is vile and deeply unfair.’
‘Mr Boyle clearly has serious issues and those that give him a TV platform to say such disgusting things need to look at themselves very honestly.
‘To bully this unbelievably brave child is despicable, to broadcast it on television is to show a complete and utter lack of judgment. I have asked my lawyers to write to Channel 4 on Harvey’s behalf.’
Eight-year-old Harvey, Katie’s son with footballer Dwight Yorke, 39, suffers from septo-optic dysplasia which has left him blind and he also has a condition that makes him gain weight easily meaning he finds walking difficult.
He also suffers from autism which leads to behavioural problems.
A Channel4 spokesperson told MailOnline: ‘Frankie Boyle is one of the highest profile comedians in the UK; he’s well known for his controversial humour and the programme carried appropriate warnings as to the nature of the material.
‘The joke aired in the context of a late night comedy show. The joke itself has been performed by Frankie as part of his stage show and, as with much of his material, is an absurdist and satirical comment on high profile individuals whose lives have been played out in the media.’
Katie, 32, and her ex Peter Andre, who has been a father figure for Harvey, have for once put on a united front in defence of their boy.
Andre, 37, was said to be ‘absolutely disgusted and sickened’ to hear that Harvey had been made fun of.
Peter Andre’s spokeswoman said: ‘Peter is angry and very upset at Harvey being mocked in this way. Children, especially a disabled youngster, should be off-limits.’
It’s not the first time Boyle has caused outrage with his comedy, in which no target is off limits.
In April, the BBC Trust’s editorial standards committee (ESC) was forced to issued an apology over an anti-semitic joke made by Boyle which which compared Palestine with a cake being ‘punched to pieces by a very angry Jew’.
Boyle made the remark on Radio 4 comedy sketch show Political Animal, broadcast in June 2008.
Last year Boyle was condemned by the BBC when he said swimming champion Rebecca Adlington looked like she was ‘looking at herself in the back of a spoon’.
Talking on Mock The Week he added that Adlington must be ‘very dirty’ to be able to keep her boyfriend.
The BBC Trust condemned Boyle for his ‘humiliating and offensive’ remarks and ‘unnecessary innuendo’.
He later quit the show in fury over what he saw as an attempt to tone down his brand of humour.
It was shortly after the corporation announced a crackdown on ‘cruel and humiliating’ comedy in the wake of the Sachsgate scandal over Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross.
But Frankie, who had previously been carpeted on Mock The Week over a sexual joke about the Queen, said the censors are dragging comedy back 30 years.
He said at the time: ‘The number one priority today is “Don’t frighten the horses”. It’s like we’re back in the 1970s in terms of compliance.’
He also found himself in hot water again recently when the mother of a child with Down’s syndrome criticised him for making fun of people with the condition during a gig in Reading.
Harvey himself has found himself under attack before.
In November 2007, Heat magazine gave away a sticker bearing a picture of Harvey next to the words ‘Harvey wants to eat me’.
The then editor Mark Frith apologised and said ‘no offence was intended.’
The Joy Of One Small Footstep
There was a time in my life when taking one small footstep was the most painful experience in the world for me. I was lucky, though, because this situation changed when I was about 8. Now I take several footsteps every day without thinking twice.
You may be wondering what has made me take this rather serious walk 🙂 down memory lane. Well, I’ve just read a post over at The Power Of Choice, the blog of my good friend Amit Sodha, that really made me stop and think back over that time in my early childhood.
The post is called The Joy Of Movement, and in it, Amit describes his recovery from a back injury, and the joy he felt at being able to do the simple things without pain again- standing, walking, sneezing… even breathing.
This post has been written to say that unfortunately, we all take the simple things for granted when we’ve had them for too long. Yes, even those of us who have struggled more than others to get them and so, perhaps, should be the last people to do any such thing.
Thank you, Amit, for reminding me of something so simple, yet so very true- movement really is a priceless gift, and every single footstep is a miracle.
Papworth Trust Envoy Phil Packer Urges People To Take Part In 2011 London Marathon For The Charity
I have just received the press release below from Kerry Atkinson at the Papworth Trust.
For the first time, East of England disability charity Papworth Trust has been awarded five places in the 2011 Virgin London Marathon and needs you to take on the challenge.
The Trust is inviting entries from people who think they’ve got what it takes. Here’s your chance to get fit, complete a challenge through some of London’s most iconic sights, and raise money for a fantastic cause.
In addition to a guaranteed place with entry fees paid by Papworth Trust, each runner will receive a fundraising support pack and a personal thank you letter from our envoy Phil Packer MBE. To run in support of Papworth Trust, entrants will need to commit to raising only £2,000 in sponsorship.
Envoy for Papworth Trust and founder of the British Inspiration Trust, Phil Packer MBE, said: “I am delighted that Papworth Trust has been awarded five places for next year’s Virgin London Marathon. This is a super cause and I know how much those selected will enjoy this thoroughly enjoyable and truly memorable event. Your help will help them to support more disabled people.”
Papworth Trust is a leading disability charity supporting over 17,000 people each year. In Cambridge and Huntingdon, the Trust has an Employment, Learning for Life and Work, Vocational Rehabilitation and Housing service. Papworth Trust relies on income raised through events such as the Marathon. Your involvement will help the Trust to help more disabled people.
Places are limited but if you’d like more information or to request one of Papworth Trust’s places, contact Mandy Barker, Fundraising Manager, on 01480 357200 or email mandy.barker@papworth.org.uk.
Elmfield School For The Deaf Could Close
A school that specialises in educating children who are deaf or who have hearing difficulties could close.
Bristol City Council made the proposal to close Elmfield School after an independent review was carried out.
The council wants to open “specialist resource bases” in the north and south of Bristol and a new base in a mainstream school.
A letter from the school’s chair of governors to parents said they would “actively challenge” the decision.
The review is due to be released by the council in the next week, along with the authority’s response.
The proposals would be subject to a six-week consultation period before the council make a decision on any potential closure in early 2011.
Gill Behenna, the chair of governors for the school, claimed the report “clearly recommended” that Elmfield should remain open.
Resource bases
“The local authority has chosen to disregard this recommendation from specialists in deaf education.
“Instead the LA [local authority] is making their own recommendation that Hearing Impaired Resource Bases should be set up in place of Elmfield School.”
Ms Behenna added that she believed the closure would be bad for the school’s pupils.
“Staff and governors already have a significant amount of evidence to show that this decision will have a negative impact on our children if it is implemented.”
A statement from Bristol City Council said the report was intended to “inform policy, not make it”.
“Many of the reasons given in the report behind this recommendation are not relevant to the situation in Bristol such as on the use of funding or that specialism would be lost.
“Our proposals seek to develop sustainable and viable deaf provision across the city.”
Disability Employer Glencraft Gets Royal Contract
An Aberdeen furniture workshop which employs staff with disabilities has won a three-year contract to supply beds to the Queen.
Glencraft closed last year with the loss of more than 50 jobs.
However, oil firm Production Services Network (PSN) stepped in and sought Scottish government support to breath new life into the factory.
Glencraft urged people buying beds to consider the organisation if they were good enough for the Queen.
The organisation previously supplied furniture to the Royal Family for decades, much of it to Balmoral Castle.
Glencraft operations manager Andy Laing said: “To have been re-awarded the Royal Warrant is a great honour and signals the strength of our business and the quality of our products.
“There is no doubt the last 12 months have been incredibly tough and we are still at the start of a long journey but this good news comes as a real boost to the business.
“You never know, we might even supply Prince William and Kate Middleton with a bed as a wedding gift from Glencraft.”
Duncan Skinner, chief financial officer at PSN and a director of Glencraft, said: “We are delighted to have reached this point whereby Glencraft will, once again, become a supplier to Her Majesty the Queen.
“Nevertheless, Glencraft still has a long way to go to become fully sustainable and we need to encourage customers buying beds to come to Glencraft where they are promised quality good enough for the Royal Family.”
Kleine-Levin Syndrome
While most teenagers struggle to get out of bed in a morning, Louisa Ball might take 10 days to fully wake from her slumber, due to a very rare neurological disorder. So what’s it like living with Kleine-Levin Syndrome?
Louisa has slept through holidays, friends’ birthdays and half of her GCSEs.
In 2008, aged 14, she had been suffering from flu-like symptoms. She was at her school in Sussex when she started nodding off in class and behaving strangely.
“I didn’t know what I was doing, what I was saying, everyone thought ‘hey this isn’t right,'” she recalls.
“I was hallucinating and after that I don’t remember anything. All of a sudden it just went blank and I just slept for 10 days. I woke up and I was fine again.”
Her parents Rick and Lottie watched their daughter becoming fidgety and with unusual facial expressions as she sank into sleep. The first time was a frightening experience for them, although Louisa herself says she wasn’t scared by the episode, more puzzled.
“It was really weird, no one knew what was wrong, we just thought it wasn’t going to happen again. And then four weeks later it happened again.”
She was finally diagnosed with Kleine-Levin Syndrome (KLS). There is no known cause or cure but Louisa says it was good to know what it was and that it wasn’t life threatening.
The average time it takes to diagnose the condition is four years, because there is no test and so it requires a process of elimination of other disorders.
The disease was named after Willi Kleine, a neurologist from Frankfurt, and Max Levin, a psychiatrist from New York, who identified patients with similar symptoms in 1925 and 1936.
Louisa is unusual as KLS usually affects teenage boys, who can also exhibit hypersexuality and inappropriate behaviour.
As well as excessive sleeping, symptoms include behaviour changes, irritability, feeling in a dream-like state and binge eating, symptoms that can be mistaken for normal teenage behaviour. There are no drugs that have conclusively shown to alleviate symptoms.
‘No dreams’
People with the sleep disorder narcolepsy fall asleep immediately, but people with KLS might sleep more and more over a number of days before falling into sleep mode.
Louisa says she remembers very little when she wakes up from an episode: “It’s just blank – no dreams. Now I’ll remember a lot more that’s gone on. Before I wouldn’t remember anything at all. My dad thinks my brain is learning to cope with it more.”
So how do you deal with a disorder that takes over your life so much?
It nearly ruined Louisa’s career ambitions, because she slept through most of her GCSEs but her college allowed her to enrol and she is studying sport performance and excellence, with dreams of being a dancer.
At first, her school teachers didn’t understand, she says. “They’d give work to my brother for me to do and when I went back to school they expected me to have done it but I’d have slept for 10 days.”
Some people with KLS have complained they have lost their friends because they suddenly disappear for weeks on end but Louisa has a close knit group of girlfriends. Some even visit her when she’s sleeping, just to check she’s ok.
When she wakes up, it takes her a few days to fully come round, and her body is quite stiff so her dancing is affected for while.
“I’ve never really got upset about it but I sometimes do think ‘why me’, because I’ve always been a normal healthy person. But all of a sudden it happened and there’s no reason why it happened and that sometimes frustrates me.
“But I’ve got used to it now and learnt to live with it. I’m a special kid.”
The change in behaviour before and during a sleep episode is one of the most upsetting things for Louisa’s parents, who take it in turns to remain with her. Doctors have told the family it’s crucial to wake Louisa once a day to feed her and get her to the bathroom.
But Lottie admits it can take a while to get her to come round. “I’ve tried before to literally force her to wake up but she just starts swearing and gets so agitated and aggressive.”
After watching a video the family made of her while sleeping, Louisa says: “I look scary, it doesn’t look like me, it’s like I’m on drugs.”
Frustrated by the lack of information in the UK, Louisa was taken by her parents to the Hospital Pitié-Salpétrière in Paris, where researchers are looking into whether it is caused by a defective gene.
Many sufferers have abnormalities in their temporal lobe, the area of the brain involved in behaviour and memory. A scan of Louisa’s brain function revealed she does have abnormalities in her frontal lobe but there are no signs that this has affected her behaviour or memory.
The good news is the disease can also disappear just as suddenly as it came on. This normally happens after 10 to 15 years.
But Louisa is currently going through a good period. She was out doing Christmas shopping with her best friend this week and has not had an episode in 13 weeks. A few weeks ago she won yet another dance competition.
“It’s almost as if I’ve forgotten about it because I haven’t had one in so long.”
Louisa’s parents, however, are still watching her constantly for signs she could be heading into a sleep state.
“It’s weird – now I’ve left school I haven’t actually had an episode, they probably think I was faking it,” she jokes.
Scope’s Prisoners Campaign To Save DLA For People In Care Homes
Scope have set up a campaign allowing people to email Maria Miller, the Minister for Disabled People, through their website, telling her why she must help to reverse the Government’s decision to remove the mobility component of DLA from people living in residential care homes.
This is part of their ‘Don’t Cut Us Out’ benefit cuts campaign. Its tagline is ‘Disabled People Should Never Be Prisoners In Their Own Homes.’
I completely agree with that statement, and completely support the campaign. If you do too, you can email Maria Miller here.
Disabled Mother Beaten Unconscious On Bus Over Pram Collision
A disabled mother thought she was going to die when she was viciously attacked after her child’s pram collided with another on a crammed bus.
A furious parent launched a violent attack on the 36-year-old woman, when there was no space for his buggy too, calling her a ‘fat b****’ and saying ‘I’m going to f****** kill you.’
The mother said up to 80 fellow passengers ‘did not even call the police’ when her head was repeatedly slammed against the floor while her husband tried to protect her and their three-year-old daughter.
She was left with head injuries and needing hospital treatment.
Unbelievably, a handful of passengers even laughed as they watched the man hurl a torrent of abuse before launching the sickening attack on the couple he thought were in his space.
Their ordeal began when the man got on the bus and demanded that she make room for his child’s pushchair.
‘I just wasn’t expecting it at all,’ the mother, who suffers from auto-immune disease lupus, told MailOnline.
‘It was 2pm on Saturday afternoon and we were on our way back from picking up my medication.
‘I didn’t refuse to move, I didn’t have anyway to go. There were suitcases in the buggy area too and I was jammed right into a corner.’
But when she did not make space, the attacker began punching and kicking the woman and her husband as others on the bus just watched.
At one point the victim thought she had been stabbed. ‘The man moved my arms that were protecting my stomach from his kicks and I thought he had done that because he had a knife.
‘I thought I was going to die.
‘My husband was being beaten black and blue too. He kept asking for someone to call 999 but noone did, not even the driver who just kept driving.’
After the attack, which left the mother unconscious, she was told that she may have been pregnant and suffered a miscarriage.
She is still scared to go out and has not been on a bus since being beaten in September.
The woman’s devastated husband, 32, said: ‘My wife was a bloody mess on the floor and her glasses had been smashed into her head.
‘When he was insulting her, people were sitting on the bus laughing.’
It was not until the bus finally stopped at a bus stop that someone stepped forward to help. A lady waited with them and looked after the victims’ daughter until the ambulance turned up.
The couple, who did not want to be named for fear of their own safety, were on the Number 85 bus as it passed Kingston University’s Surrey campus.
The husband, who is his wife’s unpaid her full-time carer, told the Daily Mirror: ‘The man started saying things about my wife and making very personal comments and insults.
‘My wife was taken to hospital by an ambulance as she was knocked unconscious. He was slamming her head repeatedly on the floor while kicking her.’
Det Con Dave Norman said: ‘Not one person stopped to give a witness statement and we have not had anyone come forward despite repeated appeals.’
Police are hunting a 5ft 10in black man, aged about 35, with short hair, who was last seen heading to Roehampton after getting off the bus on September 19.
A police spokeswoman said: ‘He was wearing a dark puffa jacket with a white logo on the left breast area, dark trousers and was seen with a black Blackberry phone.
‘He was accompanied with a 5ft 6in, large built, Mediterranean or Eastern European-looking woman about aged 35 years old, who had long dark brown hair in a pony tail.’
She said they were also with a mixed-race young girl.
Lupus is an autoimmune disease where the sufferer’s immune system creates antibodies which attack their own body tissues.
Symptoms include extreme fatigue, joint pain, muscle aches and can result in the destruction of vital organs.
Anyone with information about the attacker should call Det Con Norman at Kingston CID, on 020 8247 4946, or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
Bag Books
Bag Books has brought the pleasure of storytelling to children and adults with severe and profound learning difficulties. The 17-year old charity in south west London creates simple stories on cards which it brings to life by using props such as bells, whistles, fur and bubble wrap. So far the charity has written 39 stories and produced 10,000 Bag Books which are used by 15,000 people every year across the UK. “In some ways the story itself isn’t important: it’s more about having interesting objects, getting things which are interesting to touch and smell, which make sounds and actions and stimulate the senses,” says Bag Books chief executive Dean Casswell.
As well as producing the books – which take eight hours to make, the charity’s trained storytellers have taken the books into 130 special schools. “Most schools told us the children benefited from the experience, they really enjoy themselves,” says Casswell.
Bags Books has also run storytelling sessions exclusively for small groups of children with severe and profound learning difficulties in their own local library. So far 225 libraries have taken part. “The project bring children out into their community and gives librarians a chance to meet them. At the end of the session, the librarians also have a quick 90-minute training session on how to be a storyteller with the hope that they can be one,” Casswell says.
The charity has also been doing long-term training with 90 libraries in England.
“The training took me out of my comfort zone,” says Emily Jacques, a young person’s librarian at Watford and Three Rivers libraries run by Hertfordshire county council. “Everything was very tactile. You had to jump up and perform, it was more like being a children’s television presenter than a librarian where you usually ask the children to sit down and listen to a story. The shared experience of a story is part of who we are, it’s how we learn about ourselves. Bag Books gives children the space to be part of that.”
Casswell says winning the award is “fantastic”. “It makes a big difference if more people are aware of us.”
The charity plans to use its £6,000 prize money to launch its Tall Stories project which aims to take Bag Books to more adults with learning disabilities. It intends to work with six day centres in UK, training staff to become story tellers.
Company Fined £120K After Man Paralysed By Work Accident
A paper company has been fined £120,000 after a worker was left paralysed from the chest down in an incident at work.
Christopher Shaw, from Eastham, Wirral, was crushed beneath a two-tonne reel of paper in the accident at SCA Hygiene in Oakenholt, near Flint.
The company admitted breaching health and safety rules and failing to provide a safe system of work.
SCA Hygiene was also ordered to pay £18,514 costs by Judge John Rogers QC at Mold Crown Court.
The Health and Safety Executive had prosecuted the firm after an investigation.
The court heard that a dangerous practice took place where the heavy reels were moved by workers using their shoulders at the end of the production line.
The dangers had been highlighted repeatedly within the factory as a health and safety concern, but nothing had been done about it, Judge Rogers said.
Assistant winder Mr Shaw is now a paraplegic following the spinal fractures he suffered on 29 July, 2007, and has no movement below his chest and only limited movement in his arms.
Judge Rogers said: “Mr Shaw suffered horrific injuries in the course of his employment by the defendants at their Oakenholt paper mill and the effect of those injuries has been to render him paraplegic.
“In very simple terms this accident occurred when he was attempting to control and slow the descent of a two-tonne reel of paper from the table to the floor with his shoulder.
“There was water on the floor and it may be the water caused him to slip and the reel moved on and crushed him.
“He was following a system of work deemed safe by the defendants – it was not so.
“The defendants now acknowledge it was not and, as a result, plead guilty to not ensuring the safety of Mr Shaw.”
Safety issue
Simon Parrington, prosecuting, said company minutes showed that on five occasions between November 2006 until 10 days before Mr Shaw’s accident, concerns had been raised about manual handling of paper reels.
On each occasion a risk assessment had been called for.
On three other occasions, the safety issue had been logged and the shift manager informed, said Mr Parrington.
Richard Matthews, for the company, said: “The company recognises the appalling injuries, the life changing injuries to this man, which are the worst aspect of this, and nothing I can say in terms of expressing genuine regret to everyone, can change anything.
“But that regret is felt throughout the company.”
DLA Reform Proposals: Charities React
All 3 million disabled people, including pensioners and children, who receive allowances will be forced to undergo periodic medical tests to justify the payments under proposals outlined today.
Ministers propose to end the automatic right to disability living allowance, worth up to £70 a week for care and up to £50 a week for travel needs. Claimants will have to wait for a year for the new “personal independence payment” and then submit to a series of tests focusing on “an individual’s ability to carry out a range of key activities necessary to everyday life”. A similar system to judge the fitness to work of those claiming disability benefits will have to be overhauled amid mounting evidence that people with serious illnesses are being judged fit when they are not.
Many claim that the costs will outweigh any benefits. “We have fundamental concerns that the cost of the administration will mean there is no saving here. Claiming these benefits mean at the moment filling out a very long form. I don’t think the answer is a whole new process of interviews, which many disabled people may find intimidating,” said Guy Parckar of the Leonard Cheshire disability charity.
Welfare support will also be conditional on disabled people acting on government instructions to “better manage or improve their situation if appropriate”.
Charities said they were “deeply concerned” about the proposals – the government pencilled in £1bn of savings from DLA in the June budget.Sue Brown of the deafblind charity Sense said: “Some of our blind members might lose payments for using a taxi if, for example, they were given a white cane and told they could now move around.”
The government said that the taxpayer this year will have to pay out “a lot more than expected” to disabled people, with DLA costs topping £12bn. It said 30% more people get the benefit than eight years ago.
“There’s no evidence of widespread fraud and no evidence to back up claims that the benefit acts as a barrier to work,” said Richard Watts, of the Essex Coalition of Disabled People.
DLA Reform- Public Consultation
I can’t believe my eyes, readers. This is the reason why.
Minister For Disabled People Maria Miller has today launched a public consultation into the possibility of… wait for it… replacing DLA with a new benefit, to be called the Personal Independence Payment. Full details are at the link above.
I claim DLA. This makes Wednesdays the highlight of my week. I really don’t know what I would do without DLA. So, the government can consult whoever they like about changing it however they like, but I, for one, hope that if anything changes, those changes won’t apply to people like me, whose DLA award is indefinite.
I will fully support any campaigns which might start against the idea of replacing DLA with anything. I’ll keep you posted, readers, and, as always, your comments are very welcome.
Scientist Robin Franklin Explains MS Study
Scientist Robin Franklin spoke to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning about a new treatment for MS that he is currently developing. You can hear the discussion here if you are interested.
Raynaud’s Syndrome
Cold weather is not pleasant for anyone – but it can be absolute agony for people with Raynaud’s syndrome.
Sufferers experience their fingers (and often their toes) going white, then blue, as the extremities of the body seize up when they become starved of blood.
An attack is often caused by cold winter temperatures, but can also be triggered by wandering past the freezer cabinets in a supermarket.
“The first time, my fingers turned white in a slight breeze on a summer’s day,” said Alison Wright, 39.
She went to her doctor who diagnosed Raynaud’s. That was six years ago and she has suffered regular “attacks” ever since.
It is particularly bad in winter, when it’s cold – and this is when sufferers like Alison experience a lot of pain.
“My fingers can be white and painful every minute of the day in winter.
“It’s a combination of pain and numbness, like trapping your finger in a door – except it affects every finger,” she says.
Cold to the touch
The symptoms are due to a lack of blood reaching the periphery of the body, caused by the arteries contracting spasmodically.
This can be triggered by touching cold objects or exposure to cold of any kind.
A slight change in temperature, even during the summer, can cause the body to react.
Raynaud’s is thought to affect up to 20% of the adult population worldwide and there may be as many as 10m sufferers in the UK.
The condition is most commonly found in women, and approximately 10% of women in the UK suffer from Raynaud’s to some degree.
Many sufferers have never seen a doctor as they are unaware that their condition has a name or that there is anything that can be done to help.
Alison says she has learned to live with the pain.
“I have got used to it. It does reduce me to tears sometimes, but I have learned to manage it and I don’t want it to get the better of me.”
“The worst thing you can do is put your hands on a radiator after an attack,” she says.
“I have to warm up my hands and feet very slowly and gently once they’ve gone white, but they can stay that way all day.”
When she was first diagnosed, Alison tried a variety of medicines to help improve her circulation and keep the blood vessels dilated.
Blood flow
But some of these caused complications and adverse reactions.
Instead, she now uses hand-warmers, silk liners and thick socks to try to stave off any attacks.
Getting money out of her purse with numb fingers or picking up cold milk bottles are everyday frustrations which she endures.
And she has given up on skiing.
But she does exercise by go swimming and teach pilates – something the Raynaud’s and Scleroderma Association recommends.
Exercise helps to keep your skin flexible and maintains better blood flow, says the association, which also advises sufferers to maintain a healthy diet and wear plenty of thin layers of clothing rather than one thick layer.
The association also warns against smoking as “just one cigarette can reduce the body temperature by one degree over a 20 minute period”.
Alison’s favourite coping mechanism is a regular winter holiday in the sun.
“It’s great to know I can escape the cold for a week or two,” she says.
Study Offers Hope Of MS Nerve Damage Repair
Scientists have identified a way of prompting nerve system repair in multiple sclerosis (MS).
Studies on rats by Cambridge and Edinburgh University researchers identified how to help stem cells in the brain regenerate myelin sheath, needed to protect nerve fibres.
MS charities said the “exciting” Nature Neuroscience work offered hope of restoring physical functions.
But they cautioned it would be some years before treatments were developed.
MS is caused by a defect in the body’s immune system, which turns in on itself, and attacks the fatty myelin sheath.
It is thought to affect around 100,000 people in the UK.
Around 85% have the relapsing/remitting form of the condition, in which “flare-ups” which cause disability, are followed by a recovery of a level of the lost physical function.
In this form of MS, there does appear to be some natural myelin repair.
However, around 10% of people are diagnosed with a progressive form of MS, where the decline continues without any periods of remission.
In addition, people with the relapsing/remitting form do often go on to develop what is called secondary progressive MS, which affects them in the same way.
‘Missing link’
Scientists have been looking at how they might develop treatments for these two groups.
In MS, loss of the myelin sheaths which act as insulating layers, leads to the nerve fibres in the brain becoming damaged.
These fibres are important as they send messages to other parts of the body.
This study identified a signalling pathway in the brain which can encourage the brain’s own stem cells to regenerate the fibres.
They also showed how this mechanism can be exploited to make the brain’s own stem cells better able to regenerate new myelin.
The scientists believe this will help in identifying drugs to encourage myelin repair in MS patients.
However, much more work is needed – both to test if the mechanism works in people with MS and to see what drugs might be needed to promote the effect.
Professor Charles ffrench-Constant, of the University of Edinburgh’s MS Society Centre for MS Research, said: “The aim of our research is to slow the progression of MS with the eventual aim of stopping and reversing it.
“This discovery is very exciting as it could potentially pave the way to find drugs that could help repair damage caused to the important layers that protect nerve cells in the brain.”
Professor Robin Franklin, director of the MS Society’s Centre for Myelin Repair at the University of Cambridge, said: “Therapies that repair damage are the missing link in treating MS.
“In this study we have identified a means by which the brain’s own stem cells can be encouraged to undertake this repair, opening up the possibility of a new regenerative medicine for this devastating disease.”
The study was funded by the MS Society and the National MS Society in the US.
Simon Gillespie, chief executive of the MS Society, which part-funded the research, said: “For people with MS this is one of the most exciting developments in recent years.
“It’s hard to put into words how revolutionary this discovery could be and how critical it is to continue research into MS.”
Pam Macfarlane, chief executive of the MS Trust added: “Exploration of processes that might repair areas of damage to myelin, is another important area of MS research and this may eventually allow people to recover function that has been lost to disability.
“This is still an early study in rodents but it will be very interesting to see how it develops.”
Disability Wales Raises Benefit Poverty Concerns
Welfare reforms could push many disabled people into poverty, a disabled rights organisation says.
The UK government has proposed changes to disability benefits that it is expected will require recipients reassessed.
Disability Wales told BBC1’s Politics Show it was “inevitable” many would face a loss of income.
The Department for Work and Pensions said the reassessment process would be fair.
The UK Government has suggested making changes to the disability living allowance, mobility payments and independent living fund.
Changes to housing benefits and the introduction of universal credits are also on the way.
Paul Swann, independent living officer for Disability Wales, told the programme that the proposed changes would leave disabled people “marginalised”.
“Inevitably there’s going to be a loss of income for virtually every disabled person,” he said.
“The consequences of that for many disabled people is that they’re going to be pushed into poverty and the impact is that disabled people are going to be more and more marginalised, more and more excluded from society than they are now”.
Although the exact details of the welfare changes are not yet known, it is widely expected that all people with disabilities in receipt of benefits will have to undergo a reassessment of their needs.
Disability Wales is concerned that too much emphasis will be placed on whether people are physically fit to work.
Mr Swann said: “The reassessment process is fundamentally flawed by only looking at people’s impairments and very often prioritising their physical impairments and not giving due value to other impacts such as social exclusion and so on”.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said the reassessment process would be be fair and was necessary to “find out what individuals are capable of doing, rather than focus on what they can’t do”.
However, Karen Robson, disability officer at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff (Uwic), said changing the assessment process may actually help.
“It’s about a simplification of the benefits system,” she said.
‘Unnecessary worry’
“I used to work for the Citizens Advice Bureau and when it comes to the benefits system there are a lot of benefits that go unclaimed because it’s so complicated to work your way through the process so I would hope that the systems we put in place will make it easier to get through the process”.
Ms Robson said that people with disabilities should wait for the details before worrying.
“I think there’s a lot of unnecessary worry, we don’t know half of the detail yet.
“I know there are a lot of changes that people are very worried about those but I think it’s really important that we keep a level of perspective about this.
“Everyone is experiencing cuts right across the board, I don’t believe disabled people are being singled out for particular pain.”
BBC News – Touchscreen mobile technology developed to aid blind
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DisAbled Business Owners
In 1995 Vanessa Heywood had the world at her feet, her talent as a actor, singer and dancer winning her roles in prestigious touring theatre productions such as West Side Story, Twelfth Night and Elvis: The Musical. But then she began to notice something was not quite right.
“As a dancer I was incredibly fit, obviously, but I was doing double pirouettes and not quite landing on a sixpence. At first I thought I wasn’t practising hard enough, that I must practice harder,” she recalls. “But then I started to realise it wasn’t that.” To her disbelief, a brain scan confirmed she had multiple sclerosis.
Heywood carried on dancing for a while, but found the life increasingly gruelling. “My energy was affected and I was trying to hide the MS constantly,” she says. Soon after, she had her two children in quick succession, but things became even more complicated when her husband suddenly left. This meant she had to look after two young children alone, without an income.
Six years ago she saw a chance to reinvent her career, utilising her lifelong passion for music to write inspiring, interactive songs for young children. “I took my kids to a singalong session where the mums were drinking coffee and singing The Wheels on the Bus rather halfheartedly, and I just realised, I could do better than this,” she says.
Looking after her two young sons by day, and working by night, she wrote in her lounge, often sleeping on the sofa when the MS stopped her getting up the stairs. “I was writing frenziedly,” she says, quickly composing 36 songs and creating a group of characters, the Tiny Mites, which sprang from stories she told her sons. Unable to afford to hire a hall, she held her first music sessions for children in a church field in Radlett, Hertfordshire, where she lives.
Today her business, Tiny Mites Music, has contracts with a number of large holiday parks, nursery chains and schools and has released a Tiny Mites CD. Last week, she won the Stelios Award for Disabled Entrepreneurs in the UK – an annual £50,000 prize awarded by EasyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou’s philanthropic foundation in association with Leonard Cheshire Disability, an honour she describes as “life-changing”.
Her story shows some of the advantages disabled people can derive from being self-employed. The government’s Office for Disability Issues estimates there are 10.1 million disabled adults – covering people with a longstanding illness, disability or infirmity, and who have significant difficulties with day-to-day issues – in the UK, about half of whom are of working age.
While setting up a business is not easy at the best of times, Kath Sutherland, a development officer with the Disabled Entrepreneurs Network (DEN) and a small business owner herself, says being able to work from a particular location, in hours that suit the individual, can be hugely liberating.
“I set up my company in 1999 because it was difficult to work nine to five,” says Sutherland, who needs 24-hour support for a combination of neurological and visual impairments and mobility issues. She set up her business, START (Ability), by offering support to groups of disabled people wanting to approach lottery funders, and who needed help with business plans and structures. She now also offers one-to-one training and support to national organisations, as well as resources in different accessible formats.
One problem, she says, is that would-be disabled entrepreneurs are often trapped in a Catch-22 situation. “At the DEN we get a lot of calls from people who need assistive technology, but can’t get it without starting up a business,” she says. “But then they can’t start up a business, or draw up a business plan, without the assistive technology. It can be very complex for some people to take the first step.”
Amar Latif, a blind entrepreneur and former Stelios award winner with his tour company, Traveleyes, agrees. “Setting up any business requires a lot of hard work and research. Then, if you’re blind, you’ve got other issues, such as information not being accessible for you to do the research,” he says.
Latif set up Traveleyes in 2004 because he loved travelling but was frustrated at not being able to do it independently: “Being blind, just jetting off by yourself without your family wasn’t an option,” he says. “You could fly, but you couldn’t explore by yourself.”
Traveleyes offers heavily subsidised prices for sighted travellers who, in exchange, spend part of the trip acting as the “eyes” for non-sighted travellers in the group. “I knew, in my heart, it was a great idea and it would work,” Latif recalls. “I did a little experiment and took someone to Malaysia and Thailand to be my eyes. The great thing was that the sighted person really, really enjoyed it, too.” He now also acts as an ambassador for Leonard Cheshire Disability, which helps would-be disabled entrepreneurs negotiate problematic issues like banks and business plans.
Long-term ME sufferer Linda Edmonds dreamed of starting a business hosting cookery parties and teaching kids to cook, but hadn’t worked for six years. “I’d always been active, but having ME was terrible,” she recalls. “I was hospitalised for six weeks at one point. It was crippling.”
She got in touch with Leonard Cheshire Disability through her local Jobcentre in Braintree, Essex, and was assigned a business adviser, Leonore Lord. “We offered Linda help with a business plan, accessing finance, help coming off benefits and lots of moral and emotional support,” says Lord.
“Leonore was fantastic in helping get me started,” says Edmonds, who finally overcame her ME shortly before her business, The Cookery Angel, launched in 2008. “It was a great feeling to come home exhausted, but because I’d been working, not because I’d been lying on the couch in agony all day.”
Lord thinks one of the biggest challenges disabled people can face in going self-employed is persuading relatives that it is a good move. “Friends and family are often concerned at the thought of disabled people setting up in business,” she says. “It can hold them back, so we provide the emotional support, critical friends and background information about opportunities, workshops and one-to-one support, so they’re thinking about all the things they should be thinking about, such as, What happens if I get poorly? What happens if the business doesn’t work? And also about coming off benefits.”
For those accustomed to benefits, that can be daunting. “If people’s whole household income is from benefits and they have fairly high housing costs, moving into self-employment is a bit like falling off a cliff,” says Ann Chaplin, a project manager with Enabled4Growth, a scheme that supports London-based businesses run by disabled people. “The benefits can stop immediately, and who can start a business that provides them with an immediate income of £20,000 to replace that lost income?”
The DEN’s Sutherland commonly answers questions about disability benefit entitlement for the self-employed. “There’s a lot of misconceptions, like you can’t get Access to Work [a practical advice and support service for disabled workers] assistance, which you can, and also that you can’t be self-employed if you’re on incapacity benefit. Actually, it can be allowed as permitted work,” she says.
Under the current permitted work rules, many ESA or incapacity benefit claimants can work for less than 16 hours a week on average with earnings up to £95, although government advice website Directgov recommends checking with your adviser beforehand. From February 2011, over 2 million people claiming incapacity benefit will be “migrated” on to the newer Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). To achieve this, the Department for Work and Pensions is undertaking a massive reassessment programme. Permitted work will still be allowed under the new scheme, but the prospect of reassessment is understandably causing apprehension among many claimants.
All this impacts on another key issue for disabled entrepreneurs: the difficulty in raising working capital. “Banks worry about lending to people who don’t have a perfect financial track record because maybe they’ve been on benefits, or they’ve got hearing or visual impairment, or they’ve got a chronic long-term illness,” says Lord.
Latif had to overcome just such preconceptions when setting up Traveleyes: “I’d walk into banks and they’d just say, ‘What? You’re blind, and you want to set up as a tour operator? Alone?’ There was a lot of working around that, it was quite a challenge.”
Jeremy Freeman, a deaf entrepreneur who runs website design consultancy Bamps.com, as well as two online toy shops, Treeblocks and The Bubble Shop, has also found funding hard to come by. “Even though we have a good business plan and our turnover has increased year on year, we haven’t been able to grow as fast as I would have liked,” he says. “I believe some bank managers use my disability not to lend – but they have not said that to me.”
Freeman has used the challenges he has faced to spur himself on and is also a regional director of a nationwide business networking group called BNI. “There are thousands of members all over the UK, and I only know of one other deaf person who is a member,” he says. “My deafness has helped me show businesses that deafness should not be a barrier – it has opened people’s eyes and given me a lot of respect that I can be successful despite being profoundly deaf.”
All the disabled entrepreneurs Guardian Work spoke to were keen to stress the importance of being passionate about your business. Heywood, who is preparing to franchise her Tiny Mites Music business nationwide, agrees it’s important to find an idea you really believe in, “then your passion and belief will push you through the bad times. I think that’s true for anyone, but especially if you’ve got extra difficulties to battle through.”
However, Heywood, whose MS often makes simple tasks seem huge, also feels would-be disabled entrepreneurs should be realistic about their limitations and pace themselves accordingly, a view echoed by Leonard Cheshire Disabled business adviser Leonore Lord. “I can sit in a meeting and can see what pain people are in,” she says. “It’s around being able to understand that, as much as people want to develop their business, it’s also about the limitations they have.”
Latif warns first-time disabled entrepreneurs to be prepared for “difficult times and a lot of heartache”, but says if you have a great idea that you’re passionate about, then go for it. “You’ll come across a lot of challenges but as an entrepreneur you’ll have challenges, anyway,” he points out. “So the buck stops with you. If you’re disabled, it’s just an extra challenge.”
BBC News – Award winning disabled singer: “Don’t judge us”
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BBC News – Many caring for sick relatives are failing to claim
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Government Review Of Specialist Disability Employment Support
The Government announced a review of specialist disability employment programmes on 2 December 2010.
Ensuring equality for disabled people is a key priority for the Coalition Government. Since May 2010, the Government has set out an ambitious programme of employment support to ensure that people disadvantaged in the labour market will get the help they need to find and keep jobs. Our aim is that Government programmes should support more disabled people than ever before into employment.
On 25 October, DWP launched Work Choice – a new flagship programme to support disabled people with complex disability-related barriers to work. From summer 2011, the Work Programme will provide personalised employment support to a wide range of customers, including disabled people. Building on these foundations, the Department has announced an independent review of specialist disability employment programmes. Liz Sayce, Chief Executive of RADAR, the UK’s largest disability campaigning organisation, is leading this review.
To support this review the Government has published the following call for evidence. This provides an opportunity for people and organisations to submit written evidence to inform the review. We expect to publish the review by summer 2011.
This call for evidence will close on 28 February 2011.
Please send your responses or any queries about this document to:
Disability Employment Support Review Team
Disability and Work Division
Floor 2
Caxton House,
Tothill Street,
London, SW1H 9NA.
Email: employmentsupport.review@dwp.gsi.gov.uk
Fax: 0207 449 5746
Please ensure your response reaches us by 28 February 2011
International Day Of Disabled People
Today is the International Day Of Disabled People. This year, appropriately, the Day falls in the first UK Disability History Month. So have a great day, and please celebrate yourselves and/or the DisAbled people in your lives in some way today.
JustGiving Page Of The Week: Karen Ruddlesden
I recently read Karen Ruddlesden’s story in my favourite mainstream magazine, Pick Me Up. Karen told the story of how she met and came to own her assistance dog, Coco, who is trained to detect comas caused by her rare DisAbility, Addison’s disease. Karen is fundraising for the charity that gave her Coco, Cancer And Bio Detection Dogs. Hers is this week’s JustGiving Page of the Week. I hope you reach your target Karen!
BBC SPORT | Other sport… | Disability Sport
BBC News – New technology helping disabled people lead full lives
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Craig Wood
Three weeks after 19-year-old rifleman Craig Wood proposed to his 17-year-old girlfriend Vicky Swales, he was blown up by a wire-detonated roadside bomb on his first patrol back in Afghanistan.
Vicky Swales, from York, was faced with a big decision. She was staying at the same caravan park in Brandesburton, Yorkshire where she had first met her fiance, when she heard the news in July, 2009 that he was critically injured.
“Craig’s Dad came round and says ‘Vicky I think you should sit down. He’s seriously injured and he’s been involved in a bomb’.
“I was shocked because it’s one of the things you don’t think is actually going to happen,” she said.
Craig survived but lost both legs and an arm, becoming one of only four triple amputees in the military. Since 2001, 345 British soldiers have died in operations in Afghanistan.
Proud of her “man in uniform”, Vicky had to decide whether she could offer the support and help he needed.
She decided to stay and become his carer – a tough ask for someone of any age coping with a partner with traumatic injuries.
Vicky admitted she was shocked when she first saw Craig in hospital Selly Oak Hospital, which is part of Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.
“He looked like a little child. It nearly killed me,” she said.
The hospital treats 520,000 patients each year, military and civilian.
According to figures from the Ministry of Defence Analytical Services and Advice (DASA) website, the medical staff have treated 218 very seriously injured and 222 seriously injured service personnel from Afghanistan between 2006 and October 2010.
Some critically injured soldiers say it is too much to ask of any girlfriend, to stick around while they learn to walk, talk and adjust to civilian life. But could this young couple prove the doubters wrong?
While struggling with the extent of his own injuries, Craig asked Vicky if she wanted to split up.
He said: “I thought she was just going to say I don’t want you anymore. I was just so scared that she was going to leave me.”
But she did not hesitate.
“I was just sat there going, ‘I don’t want to leave him. I want us to be together’. It has actually made us, me, feel stronger,” she said.
Wood admitted he was amazed at her strength.
“It has been really hard for her. I honestly don’t know how she copes.
“Once every week or whatever, I’ll just sit there and just turn to Vicky and say, ‘Oh Vicky can I have a hug?’ And I’ll just end up crying.”
Craig was awarded a compensation package of more than £500,000, and has been given donations from the public.
It meant that he was able to buy a house, which gave the couple the kind of independence unavailable to most teenagers.
But living together presented other challenges for Vicky.
“We’re new to this, so it’s like we’re obviously going to do a few things wrong, I don’t even know how to pay a bill.”
As his carer Vicky had to get Craig ready in the morning, cook his meals and do all the chores, as well as carry him up the stairs of the two-storey house.
She said: “I’m doing four times as much as I was doing a few years ago.
“I’m constantly lifting him, moving him about, doing this, doing that, running around after him, just keep on going, and then at the end of the month I’m absolutely exhausted.
“But I’m doing it for Craig. I worry about his welfare before mine.”
In some ways Vicky had to put her life on hold to look after Mr Wood. As a carer she cannot work, and moving from her parents’ house in York to Doncaster meant she lost touch with friends.
She had to put on a brave face when none of her friends from York attended their engagement party.
“I find it hard knowing that your mates are a bit worried to see Craig.
“Not a lot of people are ready to see someone who is as injured as Craig, you know it’s not something you see every day which I understand.
“It was hard enough for me so imagine what it’s going to be like for friends.”
The couple had to face more medical hurdles, when Craig underwent an operation on his legs because his bones were still growing.
He contracted MRSA and septicaemia, leaving him critically ill.
“I’ve just realised it is going to be harder than it was before,” said Vicky.
“We think he’s going to have more operations on his other legs, he’s going to have more operations on his arms because he can’t move one of them.”
Eventually, with stresses and problems that would be a struggle for most people to cope with, the teenagers split up.
Vicky said: “There’s so much more to deal with, it’s hard, it’s really hard and whoever thinks it’s easy, they’re really wrong.”
My Boyfriend the War Hero is on BBC3 2100 GMT Thursday 2 December. Or watch it afterwards on BBC iPlayer.
BBC News – Mind-control computers for disabled people
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MSPs Reject Right To Die Bill
I am very pleased to read this article. The rejection of this Bill is another victory for all those who believe in disabled people’s right to live.
The Scottish Parliament has rejected plans to give terminally ill people the right to choose when to die, despite claims they were widely backed.
Independent MSP Margo MacDonald’s End of Life Assistance Bill aimed to make it legal for someone to seek help to end their life.
Ms MacDonald, who has Parkinson’s disease, claimed there was wide public support for the legislation.
But the bill was defeated by 85 votes to 16 with two abstentions.
MSPs were allowed a rare free vote on the bill, rather than on party lines, and it was supported by a number of members from across the Holyrood parties.
It is not illegal to attempt suicide in Scotland but helping someone take their own life could lead to prosecution.
The End of Life Assistance Bill would have allowed people whose lives become intolerable through a progressive degenerative condition, a trauma or terminal illness to seek a doctor’s help in dying.
It also proposed a series of safeguards which would prevent abuse of the legislation.
Ms MacDonald said it was important to allow terminally ill people some dignity.
Speaking at MSPs debated the bill in parliament, she added: “The idea of assisting someone to achieve a peaceful death, within the law, in accordance with what that person considers to be a dignified fashion, is alive and well.”
Ms MacDonald also attacked the “Care not Killing” alliance of 50 groups, including faith-based organisations, which campaigned strongly against the bill.
Some critics have claimed it could have led to Scotland becoming a “suicide tourism” destination, along with other countries where the practice is legal, such as Switzerland.
There have also been concerns it could fail to safeguard frail, elderly people.
Holding up a piece of literature linked to the group, she said: “I’ll cut to the chase and condemn as unworthy and cheap, the contribution made by the publishers and authors of this catalogue of linguistic contortions, headed ‘Care not Killing’.
“This postcard was distributed through churches and caused alarm among frail, elderly and disabled people.”
Scottish Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said she was opposed to the bill, adding the Scottish government’s view was that it did not support a change in the law.
She said: “I personally find myself particularly concerned and fundamentally concerned about the difficulty I think would always and inevitably be present in determining that someone choosing to end their life had not been subjected to undue influence.”
During the debate, MSPs from all parties spoke out for and against the bill.
Labour MSP Michael McMahon described it as “dangerous and unnecessary”, while the two Green MSPs – Robin Harper and Patrick Harvie – said current laws were unclear and “served nobody”.
Lib Dem MSP Ross Finnie, who convened a special Holyrood committee set up to scrutinise the legislation reiterated its conclusion that it was “not persuaded that the case had been made to decriminalise the law of homicide as it applies to assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia”.
In England, the director of public prosecutions previously indicated it was unlikely that legal action would be taken against those who assist the suicide of friends or relatives who have a settled and informed wish to die.
However, no such guidance has been given in Scotland.
MSPs are also currently considering a separate bill to strengthen palliative care for the terminally ill, although Holyrood’s health committee has questioned the need for legislation to improve services.
The rejection of the bill came after Lord Falconer launched an inquiry into assisted dying in the UK, insisting it would be “an objective, dispassionate and authoritative analysis of the issues”.
BBC News – Locked-in man, Tony Nicklinson, wants the right to die
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Women With Physical Disabilities And Mental Health Problems
Earlier this year, PhD student Julia Smith published a study that raises a very interesting issue. She interviewed 12 women aged 18-65 with physical disabilities who also have mental health issues, in an attempt to find out whether mental health services in the UK currently meet the needs of users who also have physical disabilities.
The results were summarised for the guest column of the most recent issue of Disability Now magazine.
The issue is one I had not thought about before, but after reading this article I realise that it is an important one that deserves and needs more detailed study.
A few points that come to my mind about the research methods used by Julia Smith are:
For an issue like this it is an advantage that qualitative interviews, rather than questionnaires, were used as this allowed participants to explain their experiences in detail, which then gave the researcher a clearer idea of the situations faced by the group she was researching.
The wide age range of the group of women interviewed is another advantage, as mental health problems can develop at any stage in life and may improve or become more serious over a person’s lifetime- and also as that person’s level of physical disability improves or becomes more serious.
The number of women interviewed (sample size, for those who know sociology) is very small. I would like to hope that this is because there are not many physically disabled women with mental health problems around to be studied- unfortunately, I think that’s wishful thinking.
One more realistic reason for this small sample size, however, could be that the number of physically disabled women who have mental health problems and can communicate verbally is very small. A number of physically disabled people who do not have verbal communication use multiple choice to communicate. Such women would not have been able to participate in detailed face to face interviews- although they would most probably have been able to complete a multiple choice questionnaire. So while a larger sample would have been very useful, this would have required giving participants a choice between detailed spoken interviews and less detailed, written, multiple choice questionnaires.
Also, nothing has been said about the race of the group of women interviewed. This may have made a difference to the women’s experiences, as women from ethnic minority groups with physical disabilities and mental health problems are likely to face four times as much discrimination from professionals.
Another disadvantage of the study is that no men were interviewed, so the results of the research cannot be applied to men. The issue being researched is as important for men as it is for women, so it would be very useful and interesting to know the results of similar research which could be carried out on a group of physically disabled men with mental health issues, or a group of both men and women with physical disabilities and mental health issues.
If you are interested in reading the full piece of research, it is available online here.
Cross posted here.
Rejection Expected For Scottish Right To Die Bill
The Scottish Parliament is expected to reject new laws giving terminally ill people the right to choose when to die, despite claims they are widely backed.
Independent MSP Margo MacDonald’s End of Life Assistance Bill aims to make it legal for someone to seek help to end their life.
Ms MacDonald, who has Parkinson’s disease, has claimed there is wide public support for the legislation.
But it is thought the bill will not pass its first parliamentary vote.
MSPs have been allowed a free vote on the bill, rather than on party lines, and it has been supported by a number of members from across the Holyrood parties.
Scottish Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon is among the opponents.
The vote at Holyrood comes after Lord Falconer launched an inquiry into assisted dying in the UK, insisting it would be “an objective, dispassionate and authoritative analysis of the issues”.
It is not illegal to attempt suicide in Scotland but helping someone take their own life could lead to prosecution.
Ms MacDonald’s bill would allow people whose lives become intolerable through a progressive degenerative condition, a trauma or terminal illness to seek a doctor’s help in dying.
It also proposes a series of safeguards which would prevent abuse of the legislation.
A majority of MSPs on a special Holyrood committee set up to scrutinise the legislation have already said they were “not persuaded that the case had been made to decriminalise the law of homicide as it applies to assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia”.
The “Care not Killing” alliance of 50 groups, including faith-based organisations, has campaigned strongly against the bill by promoting better palliative care.
Critics have claimed its passing could lead to Scotland becoming a “suicide tourism” destination, along with other countries where the practice is legal, such as Switzerland.
But Ms MacDonald has strongly rejected the claims, and has urged MSPs to recognise what she describes as a strength of public support on the issue as well as the “faith” arguments.
In England, the director of public prosecutions previously indicated it was unlikely that legal action would be taken against those who assist the suicide of friends or relatives who have a settled and informed wish to die.
However, no such guidance has been given in Scotland.
Even if the general principles of the End of Life Assistance Bill are approved on Wednesday, the legislation would still face a further two parliamentary votes before becoming law, during which time it could be amended.
MSPs are also currently considering a separate bill to strengthen palliative care for the terminally ill, although Holyrood’s health committee has questioned the need for legislation to improve services.
Highlights Of DaDaFest
For anyone who is interested in disability arts festival DaDaFest, which runs until Friday, this article lists some highlights and general statistics.
BBC News – How sport can help rehabilitate people with disabilities
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Political blog Left Foot Forward reported on Monday that Captain SKA’s hit anti-cuts, anti-Coalition Government song, Liar Liar, will go on sale from December 12th- and will be in with a chance of beating whoever wins this year’s X Factor to the Christmas Number 1 single slot.
And the best part? All proceeds from the single will go to charities helping people affected by the cuts. One of the chosen charities is Disability Alliance, which aims to break the link between disability and poverty. That’s why I will definitely be getting hold of a copy, and hoping the song makes Christmas Number 1. I hope my UK readers will do the same.
For a bit of fun, the video is below.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Tracy Latimer
I don’t have words to describe my reaction to this case.
A Canadian farmer who was sentenced to life in prison for the 1993 murder of his disabled daughter has been granted full parole, his lawyer has said.
The decision to lift all restrictions on Robert Latimer by 6 December was made last week by the National Parole Board, according to defence lawyer Jason Gratl.
Latimer poisoned his 12-year-old daughter, Tracy, with carbon monoxide.
He said he had wanted to relieve her suffering from cerebral palsy.
The decision to grant Latimer full parole came after the National Parole Board had consulted with the wheat farmer’s psychologist, Mr Gratl said.
The 1993 murder sparked a national debate on euthanasia.
The 57-year-old from Canada’s Saskatchewan province said he had killed his daughter at his home to relieve her severe pain from complications related to cerebral palsy.
Tracy Latimer’s spine was bent out of shape, and she could not speak or communicate outwardly.
Latimer killed her by pumping exhaust fumes into the cab of his truck where he had placed her.
He was convicted in 1994 and was released from prison in 2008, at which time he was ordered to spend five nights per week at a halfway house in Victoria, in the province of British Columbia.
Wikileaks Files Reveal US Rebuffed Brown’s McKinnon Offer
Gordon Brown was rebuffed after suggesting Gary McKinnon could plead guilty to computer hacking and make a statement of contrition in return for serving his sentence in the UK.
The ex-PM’s offer was detailed in one of the Wikileaks US diplomatic cables, published in The Guardian.
Mr McKinnon faces extradition to the US for computer hacking in 2001 and 2002.
His mother, Janis Sharp, told MPs she had been “very surprised” and pleased to hear of Mr Brown’s intervention.
A High Court decision on whether Mr McKinnon’s extradition could go ahead was adjourned in May and ministers have announced a review of existing rules.
David Cameron and Nick Clegg have both expressed concerns about the case and the Home Affairs Committee is holding an inquiry into the US/UK extradition rules.
The Guardian says Mr Brown made his unsuccessful direct intervention in August 2009, according to a secret cable from the US ambassador in the UK, Louis Susman, to the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.
Mr Susman wrote: “PM Brown, in a one-on-one meeting with the ambassador, proposed a deal: that McKinnon plead guilty, make a statement of contrition, but serve any sentence of incarceration in the UK. Brown cited deep public concern that McKinnon, with his medical condition, would commit suicide or suffer injury if imprisoned in a US facility.”
Ms Sharp, giving evidence to the home affairs committee which is looking into the UK’s extradition laws, said: “I was very pleased and I wish we had known about that because he [Mr Brown] would have been given credit for it.”
She added she was surprised at the US reaction “because had the boot been on the other foot and they had said ‘could you not extradite someone’ we would say ‘of course not’ and that’s because this is what friends do”.
Mr McKinnon – who has Asperger’s syndrome – faces up to 60 years in jail if he is convicted in the US.
Campaigners say existing extradition rules are biased against the UK and are being used for offences they were not intended to cover.
The review of the laws, being carried out by Sir Scott Baker, is examining whether the 2003 extradition treaty is “unbalanced” and what discretion the home secretary should have to intervene in individual cases.
Glasgow-born Mr McKinnon is accused of hacking into US military computer systems in 2001 and 2002, altering and deleting files in the process.
He does not deny hacking into systems but insists he was seeking evidence of UFOs.
Home Secretary Theresa May agreed to an adjournment of a High Court decision on whether his extradition could go ahead.
Keith Vaz, chairman of the home affairs committee, said the fact ministers had made no decision about his case since then “highlighted the importance” of Parliament looking at the issue of the UK’s arrangements with the US and its extradition rules in general.
Post 9/11 Treaty
Other witnesses giving evidence on Tuesday included former Home Secretary David Blunkett, who signed the treaty, and Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil liberties organisation Liberty.
The last Labour government insisted there was no evidence to suggest an “imbalance” in the extradition rules or the tests applied and Mr Blunkett has said that sensible discussions with the UK’s partners could resolve “any irritants quite speedily”.
But critics of the US/UK treaty, agreed between Washington and London in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks of 2001, say it is easier to extradite people from the UK than the US.
They say the arrangement is not reciprocal because the US does not need to present evidence to a British court to request extradition, while the UK still needs to present evidence to an American court.
While originally designed to make it easier to bring terrorist suspects to justice, campaigners say the treaty is being used to seek extradition for fraud and drug offences.
Civil liberties groups say no British citizen should be sent for trial in a foreign country without due process and if they could be tried at home.
Ministers have said the current extradition arrangements are causing controversy and that the review will ensure they work “efficiently and in the interests of justice”.
Current extradition arrangements will continue until the review – which is also looking at the application of the European arrest warrant – is completed.
The European arrest warrant means EU members can ask for fast-track extradition of an individual without providing prima-facie evidence to the courts, usually as long as the offence is a crime in both countries and carries a prison sentence of more than one year.
But Fair Trials International has said more than 1,000 people have been detained and extradited under what it says is a “no-questions-asked” system.
Wendy Tiffin
A disabled woman in a Dorset care home says the government’s scrapping of mobility payments will have a “devastating impact” on her life.
From October 2012, the £49.50 a week “mobility component” of the Disability Living Allowance, for some care home residents and children, will be axed.
Wendy Tiffin, 44, lives at The Grange residential home in Poole, which is run by the Leonard Cheshire charity.
The 44-year-old, who uses a wheelchair, said she would lose her independence.
Ms Tiffin moved from her Yeovil home into The Grange two years ago after her 75-year-old mother found she could not take care of her anymore.
She told BBC Radio Solent: “I have to provide my own wheelchair and I literally will not be able to afford to maintain it or, when it wears out, buy a new one.
‘Punitive measure’
“I will literally be stuck because I have not got the money to afford any local transport.
“They need to reverse that decision to give everybody back their lifeline.”
The move, announced in the Spending Review in October as part of government plans to tackle the national deficit, is likely to affect thousands of disabled people.
The government says people in residential care will get the financial help they need and has promised to “protect the vulnerable”.
But many disabled people have serious doubts.
Conservative MP for Poole, Robert Syms, told BBC Radio Solent: “I will be taking up the concerns of the residents at Leonard Cheshire with Maria Miller, who is a minister, to see if we can have a look at what is being proposed.”
Thirty-seven MPs have also signed an early day motion calling for the decision to be reversed.
Douglas Alexander MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, has described the move as “a punitive measure that could leave people in care homes more isolated”.
Assisted Dying Inquiry Will Be Fair, Says Falconer
An inquiry into assisted dying in the UK will be objective and dispassionate, its chair, the former lord chancellor Lord Falconer, promised as it was launched today.
The Commission on Assisted Dying, whose members also include the former Metropolitan police commissioner Lord Blair, will consider what system, if any, should exist to allow people to be helped to die and whether changes in the law should be introduced.
It is funded by Terry Pratchett, the author and passionate euthanasia supporter who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, and businessman Bernard Lewis, with its formation overseen by Dignity in Dying, which campaigns for a change in the law. Critics, including the disability charity Scope, have raised concerns about its transparency and independence.
Falconer insisted: “We will evaluate all the evidence we hear on a fair basis – judge us at the end by the quality of our report.”
He added: “We approach the task, each one of us, determined to come up with a report of quality which will be respected as an objective, dispassionate and authoritative analysis of the issues, and as providing a reliable way forward. The issue is one of great ethical and practical importance.”
The commission, which will review evidence from experts and the public, is expected to publish its findings in a year. The think tank Demos will act as its secretariat, providing administrative and research support.
Assisted suicide remains a criminal offence in England and Wales, punishable by up to 14 years in prison. But the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, issued new guidelines in February, saying decisions about prosecution would be based on the circumstances of each case, and would focus on the motives of those assisting the suicide.
Falconer said: “The issue needs calm and measured work to look at the facts, about how people presently do die, about how decisions regarding the very end of life are currently made in the UK, about experience in other countries, about public opinion, about what the effect of leaving the law as it is would be, and about what the likely effect of changing it would be.”
The issue of safeguards to prevent abuse or pressure would also be examined, and the commissioners had only agreed to take part if “we are completely independent in the conclusions we reach”.
Other members include the Dr James Woodward, an Anglican priest and canon of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, and Dr Stephen Duckworth, founder and chief executive of Disability Matters.
Richard Hawkes, chief executive of the disability charity Scope, said: “Assisted suicide is a highly charged and emotional issue, and there is a desperate need for a real and open debate. However, we are deeply concerned that this pseudo ‘commission’ will not reflect the concerns and fears of many disabled people.
“When it is funded by supporters of legalising assisted suicide, and without a formal remit from government, we would question how independent this commission really can be.”
But Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying, said: “It is important that serious minds from different disciplines and perspectives give thought to the mechanisms of an assisted dying law.”
Describing it as “one of the most important social issues of our time”, she added: “No one wants people to suffer unnecessarily and against their wishes at the end of their lives. And, of equal importance, no one wants potentially vulnerable people to be at risk of harm under new legislation. The commission provides an historic opportunity to resolve these issues once and for all.”
The move follows a number of cases in which British people have travelled with friends or family to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland, where people suffering from terminal illness can end their lives. Although police investigated the cases, none were taken to court.
Starmer’s statement came after Debbie Purdy, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, won an historic judgment in the House of Lords, which ruled that she had a right to know if her husband would face prosecution in such circumstances.
DisAbled Boy, 3, Forgotten By Carer On Freezing Minibus For Five Hours
A disabled toddler was left on a chilly school bus for five hours after a council worker forgot about him.
Mason Davidson-James, who has a severe brain condition and is unable to speak, was left strapped into his seat on a 12-seater minibus after carers neglected to help him to class in Coventry.
The three-year-old was only discovered sitting alone in the freezing bus at a depot when another driver came to take the bus to collect children from school.
Council chiefs and school staff have expressed their concern at the incident earlier this month and the worker who forgot about Mason has been suspended.
Mason’s mother Rebekah, 28, said she was ‘absolutely furious’ her young son had been left alone on a day when temperatures fell to just 2C.
‘I don’t understand how they could forget a child on a 12-seater minibus,’ she said.
‘It only takes a second to look round the bus and check if any children are still on it – the worker clearly couldn’t even be bothered to glance over her shoulder.
‘His seven-year-old brother, Malachi, was sitting right next to him, and they somehow remembered to take him off the bus.
‘It’s outrageous. He can’t speak, but he was probably crying out the whole time he was alone in the depot – and no one was there to hear him.’
Mother-of-four Rebekah had said goodbye to her children on the morning of Thursday, November 18 as council escorts helped them into the minibus and did not hear about Mason’s ordeal until the mid-afternoon.
The three-year-old never arrived in school – and the first his teachers at Castle Wood School heard about his absence was when they received a call from frantic bus drivers who claimed to have found a pupil on a bus at the industrial estate.
Mason was then driven to school before a school governor took him home to his astonished mother after 2pm.
Yvonne McCall, the school’s headteacher, said: ‘It was unacceptable and we are absolutely devastated that this has happened.
‘Procedures are in place for a reason, and when they aren’t followed it can lead to this.
‘Our hearts go out to Mason’s parents.’
Colin Green, Coventry City Council’s director of children, learning and young people, said: ‘This was a very serious incident and must have been extremely distressing for the young child and his family.
‘We are very sorry that this occurred. We have procedures in place for escorting children on and off the vehicle.
‘We have launched a full investigation to find out how this happened and if necessary, will change those procedures and working practices.
‘I will inform the family of the outcome of the investigation and if any changes need to be made.’
Mason’s mother said she wants a face-to-face apology from the council for the anguish caused to her son.
‘He could have died,’ she added. ‘He had nothing to eat, nothing to drink, and was freezing cold.
‘If I hadn’t wrapped him up in his big winter coat, hat and gloves before he left, he probably would have frozen.
‘He must have been so scared, alone in the freezing cold. When he came back he had obviously been crying for hours.
‘He is now waking up in the middle of the night, crying, and is quite distressed about going to school, which he used to love.
‘Mason was the escort’s responsibility as soon as he got onto that bus, and I trusted them to get him to school safely.
‘I want a face-to-face apology, and the council needs to make sure this never, ever happens again.’
Since the incident, Coventry City Council said it has now suspended the worker who forgot Mason while they carry out a probe into the incident.
Access All Areas: The Job Market Challenge
As a week of BBC features looking at the issues facing people with disabilities – Access All Areas – continues, what challenges does the job market give disabled job-seekers?
Job hunting at the best of times can be a demoralising process. But if you are disabled and the country is in the midst of an economic downturn, then it can prove utterly pointless.
Richard Shakespeare is one such disabled person who’s been through the ringer when it comes to the labour market.
Richard, who has cerebral palsy, lost his job in the complaints department of an internet bank just over a year ago. He set out to look for a new job with optimism and vigour.
But 1,923 applications later, he threw in the towel and decided to start his own business as a disability consultant.
“It was getting ridiculous,” says Richard, “I was spending on average 50 or 60 hours a week looking for work.”
He found the attitudes of employers not always very welcoming:
“I would arrive for an interview, and you could see almost a look of panic in the face of the receptionist.”
Richard’s case is not uncommon. Just 15 years after it became illegal to discriminate on grounds of disability in employment matters, the figures are still extraordinarily striking.
Workplaces adapted
The Office for National Statistics says 52% of disabled people between the ages of 16 and 64 are economically inactive. That compares to a figure of 23% for the general population – in other words, you are more than twice as likely not to have a job if you have a disability.
The figures are even higher for people with learning disabilities, while Action for Blind People estimates that 66% of visually impaired people of working age do not have a job.
Radar, the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation, estimates that 44% of disabled 19 to 21-year-olds are not in employment, education or training – the so-called Neets – compared to 23% for the non-disabled population.
Successive governments have recognised the difficulties disabled people face in getting work, and have established schemes such as Access to Work, which provides money to employers to help them pay for any adaptations to the work place.
But a number of charities have recently expressed concern that the Access to Work budget will not rise as planned by the previous government.
And there are also fears that now government departments have to fund any adaptations for disabled employees themselves, managers will be discouraged from hiring people with disabilities, for fear of the cost.
But what about the private sector? Anecdotal accounts from there are not very encouraging.
James Parr, from Executive Headhunters, says he has placed some disabled people in larger firms in the past, but has heard of some disturbing practices by smaller businesses:
He said: “I have heard stories of people finding out further down the process, realising that people are disabled, then quickly finding a reason to reject them from the process.”
At the other end of the scale, David Clubb from Office Angels is more upbeat. He says his firm has placed disabled people in work, but usually for longer contracts:
“Obviously it’s going to be a major workplace adjustment for a three-day booking, that’s probably not going to be reasonable.
“However, sometimes some of our temporary workers are in place for three months, six months, and have integrated perfectly well into that situation.”
Outdated ideas
The Employers Forum on Disability has been trying to educate businesses on the benefits of taking on disabled people for 20 years.
Its head, Susan Scott-Parker, says plenty of progress has been made, but the system is not always delivering appropriately trained disabled people who can be taken on.
She accepts that some firms have some outdated ideas.
She said: “I had an HR director for a major company tell me the other day, ‘Well, blind people can’t use the internet, so why would I make my recruitment accessible?’
“But to be fair to her, she’s never seen a blind person use the internet.
“We’ve got a major problem with communication, and too many people with disabilities are being taught the wrong things, the wrong skills. “
For Richard Shakespeare, the need to work was partly practical – paying the mortgage – but also, he says, it is about self-esteem.
“The main thing for me was the issue of pride,” he says.
“I didn’t want to say to people, actually I don’t work, and to some extent play to the stereotype that people may have.
“A lot of people have said to me before, ‘well, you’d probably earn more money if you did rely on the state to fund your living’.
“Yes, but can I afford the holidays and the lifestyle I want to have on the back of the benefits system, and is it morally right to do so?”
Scottish MS Respite Centre Recieves Funding To Stay Open For Six Months
I am very pleased to read this:
Scotland’s only respite centre for those affected by multiple sclerosis has been given a reprieve at the 11th hour.
The centre in East Lothian, due to close next week after a high-profile campaign to keep it open, is to be funded for at least another six months.
The Multiple Sclerosis Society in London has pledged the funding.
Efforts over the last few months to secure independent funding have come together in the last few days.
The centre’s manager has received an offer of backing from several organisations.
It is proposed to offer more beds at the centre and open it up to people with other long-term conditions.
News of the development has been broken to staff and guests who were due to leave on Friday following the decision earlier this year by the MS Society’s London headquarters to withdraw funding.
Campaign victory
Simon Gillespie, chief executive of the MS Society, said: “This is a really encouraging and welcome development.
“Leuchie House is much loved by the people who visit it and we have always been committed to finding an alternative provider to help keep it open.
“It is still early days, but we have had a positive response from the property’s owners to this new bid and look forward to working with all concerned to help secure the future of Leuchie House for people with MS.”
Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray has welcomed the last minute reprieve.
He said: “Although this is a temporary reprieve, it does at least give Leuchie House a chance, and at the very least another six months when people can benefit from the care Leuchie provides.
“Above all, this is a victory for those who have campaigned tirelessly for Leuchie since the day its closure was announced, and for the staff whose loyalty and service is the greatest strength of Leuchie House.”
Soldier Defrauded Help For Heroes
A soldier who “disgraced” his regiment by conning a charity for wounded soldiers has been spared jail because of his service in Iraq and Afghanistan.
L/Cpl Ashley White, of Walsall, sold Help for Heroes merchandise at a pub but then kept the £2,459 he raised for himself, Birmingham Crown Court heard.
Recorder Benjamin Nicholls said he had “cheated” his fellow soldiers and told him to do 300 hours community service.
White, 25, faces a dishonourable discharge from 22 Signal Regiment.
White, of Tasker Street, had sold stickers, mugs and wristbands at a fundraising event. He was convicted of fraud by a jury in October.
‘Combat situations’
The recorder told him: “You have disgraced yourself and you have disgraced your regiment – you have cheated your fellow soldiers who rely on Help for Heroes.
“You have cheated the charity itself and you have cheated members of the public who thought they were giving to a worthy cause.”
But he said he had decided not to jail him “in the interests of justice” after hearing that he would be required to leave the Army.
He added: “You should have reflected in the sentence the fact that you have served your country in combat situations and given your entire adult life in service of your country.”
White, whose barracks is in Stafford and joined the army aged 16, had arranged to pay back £2,200 to the charity, the court heard.
Janis Sharp To Give Evidence To MPs In Extradition Law Review
The mother of Gary McKinnon is to give evidence to MPs looking into the UK’s extradition laws.
Janis Sharp, whose son faces extradition to the US for computer hacking offences, will appear before the home affairs committee.
A High Court decision on whether Mr McKinnon’s extradition could go ahead was adjourned in May and ministers have announced a review of existing rules.
David Cameron and Nick Clegg have both expressed concerns about the case.
Mr McKinnon – who has Asperger’s syndrome – faces up to 60 years in jail if he is convicted in the US.
Campaigners say existing extradition rules are biased against the UK and are being used for offences they were not intended to cover.
The review, being carried out by Sir Scott Baker, is examining whether the 2003 extradition treaty is “unbalanced” and what discretion the home secretary should have to intervene in individual cases.
Glasgow-born Mr McKinnon is accused of hacking into US military computer systems in 2001 and 2002, altering and deleting files in the process.
He does not deny hacking into systems but insists he was seeking evidence of UFOs.
Home Secretary Theresa May agreed to an adjournment of a High Court decision on whether his extradition could go ahead.
Keith Vaz, chairman of the home affairs committee, said the fact ministers had made no decision about his case since then “highlighted the importance” of Parliament looking at the issue of the UK’s arrangements with the US and its extradition rules in general.
Post 9/11 Treaty
Other witnesses giving evidence on Tuesday include former Home Secretary David Blunkett, who signed the treaty, and Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil liberties organisation Liberty.
The last Labour government insisted there was no evidence to suggest an “imbalance” in the extradition rules or the tests applied and Mr Blunkett has said that sensible discussions with the UK’s partners could resolve “any irritants quite speedily”.
But critics of the US/UK treaty, agreed between Washington and London in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks of 2001, say it is easier to extradite people from the UK than the US.
They say the arrangement is not reciprocal because the US does not need to present evidence to a British court to request extradition, while the UK still needs to present evidence to an American court.
While originally designed to make it easier to bring terrorist suspects to justice, campaigners say the treaty is being used to seek extradition for fraud and drug offences.
Civil liberties groups say no British citizen should be sent for trial in a foreign country without due process and if they could be tried at home.
Ministers have said the current extradition arrangements are causing controversy and that the review will ensure they work “efficiently and in the interests of justice”.
Current extradition arrangements will continue until the review – which is also looking at the application of the European arrest warrant – is completed.
The European arrest warrant means EU members can ask for fast-track extradition of an individual without providing prima-facie evidence to the courts, usually as long as the offence is a crime in both countries and carries a prison sentence of more than one year.
But Fair Trials International has said more than 1,000 people have been detained and extradited under what it says is a “no-questions-asked” system.
Beatrice Howden In The Papers Again!
Beatrice Howden, the little girl who wants a new set of wheels for Christmas, is back in the local newspapers. The Selby Times was the latest paper to cover her story, in this Saturday’s edition. I’m pleased to link to the article.
Wheelchair Stolen From Outside Pub In Wales
Drunken revellers are being blamed for stealing and vandalising a man’s wheelchair which was left outside a pub in Powys.
The chair was stolen in Knighton while its owner was inside the pub, and it was later found abandoned and damaged.
Pc Bill Cowan of Dyfed-Powys Police said the victim was forced to walk home in “treacherous” weather conditions in the early hours of Sunday.
An appeal for information has been made.
Pc Cowan said: “A local Knighton resident with a walking disability was forced to walk home in freezing and treacherous conditions after a thoughtless individual decided to remove his wheelchair.
“The owner did not even have any walking aids with him to assist his journey home and even though the wheelchair was later found abandoned nearby, it was only discovered after its owner had endured an icy and difficult journey home.
“It is believed that a drunken reveller out on a Saturday night may have decided to play and have fun with the wheelchair.”
Shelby Watson
A 12-year-old with cerebral palsy who has raised nearly £20,000 for her Anglesey community is in the running to be named Britain’s Kindest Kid.
Shelby Watson, from Amlwch, has reached the finals of a national TV competition.
The youngster has raised the thousands by doing sponsored walks, taking part in three wheelchair marathons and organising challenges.
Shelby and the four other finalists will meet David Cameron later.
The prime minister will present all five with medals recognising their achievements when they visit him in Downing Street.
The Britain’s Kindest Kid competition is run by by the Charities Aid Foundation and Five News and aims to reward the charitable behaviour of children aged between 5 and 16.
The thousands of pounds Shelby has fundraised has gone to help people and projects in the Amlwch area, including a community centre, young firefighters, the scouts and three youth clubs.
Real difference
Five News presenter Natasha Kaplinsky, one of the competition’s judges, said: “Shelby’s kindness really shines through.
“Despite being in a lot of pain she has raised an impressive amount of money which has helped make a real difference to the lives of others in Amlwch.”
The five finalists’ stories will be broadcast on Five News every day from next Monday from 1700 GMT.
Shelby’s story will be told on Thursday 9 December.
Viewers will then vote by phoning to nominate the person who the think is “Britain’s Kindest Kid”.
The winner will be announced on Five News on Wednesday 15 December.
The prize is £1,000 pocket money and £1,000 in Charities Aid Foundation vouchers to give to charities.
Lords To Review Assisted Suicide Law
Lord Falconer, the former lord chancellor, is to chair a commission that will question whether or not relatives should be able to apply to a judge for permission to assist a loved one to commit suicide.
The move follows a number of cases in which British people have travelled with friends or family to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland, where terminally ill people are able to end their lives. Although police investigated the cases, none were taken to court. Last year, Debbie Purdy, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, won an historic judgment in the House of Lords that said she had a human right to know if her husband would face prosecution in such circumstances.
Falconer told the Observer: “It is probably a criminal offence to travel with someone to Switzerland to help them to die and yet it is so obvious that nobody on any side of the argument has the stomach to prosecute people like, for example, Dan James’s parents.” He was referring to the case of the 23-year-old whose parents helped him commit suicide after he was paralysed in a rugby accident.
The fact that the law was not enforced suggested there was a problem, added Falconer. He said his team would trawl through reams of evidence from people on all sides of the debate and travel to Oregon in the United States, the Netherlands and Switzerland to see what happens in places where assisted suicide is permitted. He argued that there was a problem with the current situation because some people chose to die alone or earlier than they might have done in order to protect relatives.
“If there was an arrangement that could be made which allowed people a degree of peace of mind that their relatives would not be prosecuted, that would be a better situation. But the question is: can one get to that position without increasing the pressure on people… to take their own life earlier than they would otherwise choose to?”
One question the team would consider was whether there were steps that could be taken in advance to provide security – “for example, getting a medical opinion? Getting somebody to certify that the person who is making the decision is making it freely? Would one want perhaps to look at some sort of judicial figure who might say yay or nay?”
Falconer will lead a team including Baroness Barbara Young, the former chair of the government’s health watchdog, Canon James Woodward of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, Conservative MP Penny Mordaunt and Stephen Duckworth, who has campaigned on disability issues. Duckworth was paralysed from the neck down during a rugby accident 29 years ago when he was studying to become a doctor. He admitted that he had been worried to see a couple take their son, Daniel James, to Dignitas nine months after he was paralysed.
Duckworth said he had asked a friend to take his life two years after his accident but she refused. “I have seriously thought about how I might take my own life, but at other times I look at my job and my home and my four wonderful children and think, how could I be so foolish?” he said.
“I have lots of questions in my head: is [a change in the law] the thin end of the wedge as advocated by some disabled people or is it unfair that certain individuals with certain resources can selectively decide to travel to Switzerland?” He said nothing was ruled in or out.
Falconer’s commission has already caused controversy because of its links to the charity Dignity in Dying, which has campaigned for a change in the law. Terry Pratchett, the author and passionate euthanasia supporter who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, has helped fund the commission through the group.
Questions have also been asked about the chairmanship: Falconer previously put an amendment down in the Lords calling for a change in the law. But he insisted the commission would be independent, and suggested his own amendment had carried too few safeguards.
Baroness Finlay, a doctor working in palliative care in Cardiff, has long warned about the dangers of changing the law. “I have been told by someone close to this that they are not looking at whether but how. It can’t be independent?” she asked of the commission.
She argued that it was not possible for doctors to both offer euthanasia and work hard to improve the quality of peoples’ end of life. “They are going in diametrically opposite directions.”
Finlay added: “If you as a patient say, ‘I want to die,’ at the time you may be completely serious about it. But we know from the hundreds of patients we have these conversations with that peoples’ wishes fluctuate. And if the doctor listens to you gently and then says to you, ‘We will process the request,’ they have given you a subliminal message of agreeing that you are right.”
New Treatment Helps CP Boy Mitchell, 10
A 10-year-old Hartlepool boy with cerebral palsy is learning to do some of the things he has never been able to manage before, like riding a bike, after major surgery.
Mitchell’s parents thought they had exhausted all the options for treating their son but then stumbled across a procedure called selective dorsal rhizotomy to treat spasticity in people with cerebral palsy.
But it was not available in the UK and they had to raise more than £40,000 to travel to the US.
The operation in October was hailed a success and Mitchell is now back on Teesside starting the long recovery process.
The brain damage Mitchell suffered before he was born disrupted nerve signals and his leg muscles were tensed up. It meant he walked on his tiptoes with bent knees.
He found it hard to walk upstairs and could not put his socks on or tie his laces.
His prospects were a gradual tightening of his muscles and decreasing mobility.
‘Worst fear’
So when Mitchell’s parents Deborah and Phil found out about the operation at the St Louis Children’s Hospital, in Missouri, they set about fundraising.
Deborah said: “The thought of him being in a wheelchair and not being able to get around himself and having to rely on other people – they were bad days.
“I think the worst fear was that we were going to have to watch him struggle.”
Selective dorsal rhizotomy has been carried out in the US for more than 20 years.
It involves a 1in (2.5cm) section of surface bone being removed from the spine. Then the exposed nerves which are sending the mixed messages are cut.
It means with fewer signals getting through, muscles relax and walking should become easier.
More than 40 children from the UK have had the operation since 2009.
The only centre which offers the procedure in the UK is the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital in Oswestry, and there are differences from the treatment on offer in the US.
‘Huge difference’
The Department of Health said: “Decisions about individual treatments are taken by local NHS bodies after considering how well the procedure works and whether it represents value for money.”
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) has been reassessing the procedure and is due to publish new guidance soon.
Its current guidance is that the procedure is safe but there are uncertainties about risks, how well it works and that patients need extensive physiotherapy and rehabilitation afterwards.
A neurosurgeon from Leeds was in St Louis to watch the procedure at the same time as Mitchell and his family and he said he was keen to bring the treatment to Britain.
Mitchell is now home and his mother said they were delighted with the results.
She said: “It has made a huge difference. He is walking tall with straight legs and his feet are flat on the ground.
“He is very proud of the fact that he can do that and he has said so.
“And I think the worry that he would eventually have not been able to walk at all as he got older, that’s no longer there.
“So we are absolutely delighted with what has happened.”
See more on this story on Inside Out, BBC1, Monday, 1930 GMT.
BBC News – Disability equality forty years on
Vodpod videos no longer available.
BBC Asks What Needs To Be Done To End Disability Discrimination
A week of BBC features looking at the issues facing people with disabilities – Access All Areas – is getting under way.
Disability affairs correspondent Peter White looks at how much more needs to be done to end discrimination, 40 years after the first Disability Act.
In the late 1960s you would have needed to scan Britain’s law books with a very strong magnifying glass to find any reference to disability.
Except for a few mentions of compensation for wounded ex-servicemen and those suffering from industrial injuries, politicians seemed to think that disability was everyone’s problem but theirs.
Then along came a young Lancashire MP who won the parliamentary equivalent of the lottery, the right to choose a bill to steer into law.
The choice he made, the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, put disability on the political map for the first time.
Alf Morris, now Lord Morris of Manchester, was originally inspired by personal reasons.
His father had suffered terrible injuries in World War I; as well as his physical injuries, he had lifelong respiratory problems; he rarely went out.
But what young Alf thought so unfair was that, apart from a small pension, there was almost nothing in the way of services that took his father’s disability into account.
“He couldn’t work; he barely had enough money to keep warm,” he said.
And what Alf Morris discovered when he began to frame his bill, exactly 40 years ago, was that it was hardly surprising that local councils were not offering their disabled population any services, because they did not know who they were, where they were, or how many of them there were.
“We were legislating in the dark,” Lord Morris now says.
Nonetheless, and despite quite a lot of ministerial indifference, the act was passed in May 1970, and for the first time encapsulated ideas such as help at home, the right to proper assessment of your needs, and – crucially – the idea that making the environment accessible to disabled people was the responsibility of local councils.
‘Intractable problem’
Lord Morris freely admits there was much it did not do.
The Act provided no right to disability benefit – that came later – and it was now that disabled people themselves, already forming into a movement demanding Rights, not Charity, took up the cudgels.
Crucially, their major campaign at the beginning was getting disabled people out of institutions, where many of them were expected to spend their lives, and pioneering independent living.
Forty years on, it is undeniable that there have been huge improvements: medical, technological, and in the existence of anti-discrimination legislation.
But a new BBC Survey does raise the question: is the job completely done, or, in a very tough economic climate, could we be facing something of a backlash?
The survey reveals, for instance, that though 90% of those polled believed the government should provide the necessary funds to make the workplace accessible for disabled people, and that almost as many believed that resources should be available to allow them to live independently, 40% thought that people with disabilities turned down jobs, even when they were physically able to do them.
If you look at the responses of young people and those on low incomes, that figure rises to well over 50%.
This suggests that it is particularly those also struggling for jobs at a tough economic time who are the chief sceptics about disabled people’s willingness to make an economic contribution where they can.
The relationship between work and disability is an intractable problem.
For the last 20 years governments of all colours have, with increasing desperation, been trying to cut the benefit bill, and that includes people with disabilities.
Despite toughening the medical tests to judge your ability to work, reducing the level of incapacity benefit to people with occupational pensions, and now shortening the time people are allowed to stay on benefits, numbers stubbornly refuse to come down.
‘Honourable exceptions’
So why? We certainly now have a wider definition of disability than we once did. Time was when you needed those telltale symbols of disability: the wheelchair, the guide dog, the hearing-aid!
In the past people did not declare disability if they did not have to: there was nothing to be gained from it, and much to lose, including, ironically, the chance to work!
Employers, with some very honourable exceptions, have always been sceptical about taking on disabled people.
Amongst those receiving work and disability-related benefits have been a rising number of people with psychiatric illnesses – they make up around an estimated 40%.
Though few will come out and say it, there is a suspicion amongst many that quite a number of these people could work.
Cecilia Weightman knows this.
Cecilia has bipolar disorder, which can strike her with 12 mood swing cycles a day, not a brilliant scenario for rejoining the workforce.
“But for people who observe me, there’s no outward sign; people think because there’s no physical evidence, then I can’t be disabled; but I am”.
Nobody but a fool would claim there is no fraud involved in disability benefit; wherever there is money, there is fraud.
But interestingly, the Department of Work and Pensions itself has always said that the level of cheating amongst genuinely disabled people has always been very small; and let us be clear, all those claiming disability work-related benefit have been deemed by a doctor to need it.
This government, despite its determination to tackle high benefit costs, has consistently maintained that it does not intend to hurt “genuinely” disabled people.
But perhaps we still do not agree on what is genuine.
Maybe the next step is a more sophisticated understanding of what disability really is, and how people are likely to cope in an increasingly stressful workplace?
Lord Morris, still observing the scene closely 40 years on from his big law, agrees with that.
“I don’t like talking about what I or my bill achieved. That way lies complacency. There’s still so much to be done”.
The Wheel That Can Be Folded
Designer Duncan Fitzsimmons has invented something wheelchair users and their family and friends might find interesting- a wheel that can be folded. So big wheelchairs will soon be able to fit into small spaces- and aeroplane lockers. Will this stop airlines rejecting wheelchair users on grounds of health and safety? I’d like to hope so, but I have my doubts!
JustGiving Page Of The Week: Emmie Wallace
@goldencaesar recently sent me a Tweet with a link to Emmie Wallace’s JustGiving Page. Emmie is fundraising for a little known charity called Cancer and Bio Detection Dogs. I can never refuse a request, which is why Emmie’s page is this week’s JustGiving Page Of The Week. I hope you reach your target, Emmie!
Libby Meyers
A Dorset woman with severe ME who has been unable to leave her bed for eight years has been “left to rot” by the NHS, her family has said.
Libby Meyers, 62, is in a nursing home in Charlton Down near Dorchester but her family want her to be treated at a specialist NHS centre in Essex.
Her husband and daughter have appealed three times but their applications have been rejected by NHS Dorset.
The trust said it was working with the family to address their concerns.
ME, which stands for myalgic encephalomyelitis, is also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and is characterised by prolonged fatigue associated with a symptoms such as muscle pain, headaches and sore joints.
Mrs Meyers’ husband Hugh, from Stratton near Dorchester, said his wife had simply been “abandoned” with no NHS treatment since 2007.
Her bed in the Chestnut Nursing Home is being paid for by the family.
Their third appeal against NHS Dorset’s decision not to fund treatment in Essex was turned down recently and they now have no further right to appeal.
He said: “She’s had assessments [by local NHS] and they’ve all said ‘sorry, she’s too severely ill and we’ve got nothing that can help her’.
Their daughter Fiona Meyers said: “They’ve left mum to rot in a nursing home.
“I think it’s cruel, I think they’ve treated us with total disregard.
“She has no future, she has an existence at the moment because she is so ill and can do so little and she needs treatment.”
‘A scandal’
In a letter to the trust, Oliver Letwin, MP for West Dorset, said he was “dismayed” that attempts by Mr Meyers to obtain proper treatment had failed.
“If the PCT is refusing residential treatment out of the county, then it seems to me clear that there is an absolute obligation to provide proper treatment within the county,” he said.
“I really think that this case has reached the point at which it is becoming a scandal.”
Patients are admitted for up to six months, at a cost of up to £90,000.
Professor Leslie Findley said: “We know what happens if they don’t get any treatment – most of them stay the way they are.”
He said two thirds of patients treated at the unit have experienced “significant functional benefits”.
“If they’re bed-bound, they’re no longer bed-bound, if they’re house-bound they’re no longer house-bound, if they can’t go to work, they’re starting to go to work,” he explained.
NHS Dorset said it could not discuss the case because of patient confidentiality but confirmed it was working with Mrs Meyers’ family to address their concerns.
It added: “NHS Dorset is the commissioner of quality healthcare for people throughout the county and needs to ensure that any treatment is clinically effective.”
About 150,000 people in the UK have ME and of them about 3% have symptoms classed as severe.
Shocking Variation In Diabetes Amputation Rates In Parts Of England
Variations in the amputation rates in diabetes patients in England have been described as shocking by a charity.
Department of Health data reveals the rate of major amputations in the South West, at three in 1,000, is almost twice the rate in the South East.
The Diabetes UK charity says the majority could be prevented.
The government says it is publishing the information, which also covers other conditions and has been dubbed an “atlas of care”, to help improve care.
The amputation difference is one of the most striking revealed in a series of 34 “maps” of healthcare produced.
Treatment of last resort
It also looks at key treatments for some of the most serious conditions including stroke, heart disease and asthma.
There are more than 70 major amputations a week carried out on type 2 diabetes patients in England. It is thought 80% of amputations are potentially preventable.
Diabetes can lead to a loss of sensation in the feet so minor injuries can become badly infected without the patient noticing.
If the infection becomes too severe, amputation of a foot or the leg below the knee becomes the treatment of last resort.
Barbara Young, the chief executive of Diabetes UK, said “The existing situation around foot care and amputations is shocking, given the that the majority of amputations can be prevented.”
The atlas also reveals a big variation in the percentage of people with diabetes who are receiving all the essential checks to monitor their condition.
This includes the simple foot checks which can help prevent amputation.
While some geographical differences would be expected, researchers say unwarranted variation is a cause for concern. They adjusted their data to take account of different populations in different areas.
Sir Muir Gray, the public health academic who led the research within the Department of Health, said: “Most people in the health service are so focused on what they’re doing, working so hard, they’ve got no idea if they are doing better or worse than someone else.
“The atlas is now going, for the first time, to give them a clear idea of where they are.”
Unwarranted variation
This is particularly true in areas of care where the evidence is clear. Patients with a suspected mini-stroke are at higher risk of a major stroke. The national guidelines recommend they should have specialist tests within 24 hours.
The atlas shows a greater than 10-fold difference in the percentage of patients who are getting that gold standard treatment.
A handful of areas are managing for all the patients at risk but in many parts of England that falls to fewer than half.
Some experts believe reducing the variations to give priority to treatments backed by evidence could help find the savings it needs.
Professor Chris Ham, chief executive of the King’s Fund, said “If performance across the NHS can be brought up to the level achieved by the best, then much of the pressure on local NHS budgets can be relieved without having to cut services for patients.”
The data in the atlas predates the coalition government but ministers have supported its publication.
Health minister Lord Howe said: “Making this information available will help to identify and address unwarranted variation to better meet the needs of their local populations.”
I’m linking to this article, about a new international study on welfare by the OECD, which has found that young British people are more likely to claim disability benefits than young people in other rich countries.
New Poll Shows Support For Scottish Right To Die Bill
The politician behind plans to give terminally ill people the right choose when to die has urged MSPs to recognise strong public support for the move.
Margo MacDonald’s plea came ahead of a Scottish Parliament vote on the End of Life Assistance Bill on 1 December.
The independent MSP, who has Parkinson’s disease, published the results of a poll which indicated most Scots adults supported the proposals.
MSPs have been allowed a free vote on the bill, rather than on party lines.
It is not illegal to attempt suicide in Scotland but helping someone take their own life could lead to prosecution.
According to the poll, conducted by Angus Reid, 77% of adult Scots back the legislation, while 12% opposed it and the remainder were unsure.
The survey, carried out from 14-16 April, asked 1,001 people: “The Scottish Parliament is considering the End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill, which would allow people with intolerable terminal illnesses to be assisted if they wish to end their own life. Do you agree this option should be available to people in Scotland?”
End of Life Assistance Bill – Key measures
- Person must be terminally ill or “permanently physically incapacitated”
- Request must be made to and approved by doctor and psychiatrist
- Both must be asked twice after 15-days cooling off period
- Assistance must be supervised by the approving doctor
- Close friends and relatives banned from administering drug
- Only over-16s qualify
- Applicants must be registered with Scottish GP for 18 months
- Bill does not apply to those with dementia or other degenerative mental condition
The “Care not Killing” alliance of 50 groups, including faith-based organisations, has campaigned against the bill by promoting better palliative care.
Ahead of this week’s vote, Ms MacDonald said: “MSPs should be influenced by the strength of public support as much as by the church campaign.”
Ms MacDonald’s bill would allow people whose lives become intolerable through a progressive degenerative condition, a trauma or terminal illness to seek a doctor’s help in dying.
It also proposes a series of safeguards which would prevent abuse of the legislation.
The fate of the bill at the first vote is uncertain, and the majority of MSPs on a special Holyrood committee set up to scrutinise the legislation said it was “not persuaded that the case had been made to decriminalise the law of homicide as it applies to assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia”.
If the general principles of the bill were to be approved this week, the legislation would still face a further two parliamentary votes before becoming law, during which time it could be amended.
In England, the director of public prosecutions has indicated he was unlikely to take legal action against those who assist the suicide of friends or relatives who have a settled and informed wish to die.
However, no such guidance has been given in Scotland.
The bill vote had been due to take place on Thursday, but has been moved to accommodate a debate on the row over the Scottish variable rate of income tax.
Event: “The Struggle For Inclusive Education”
I’m going to an event tonight to launch Disability History Month. It will focus on “The Struggle For Inclusive Education.”
More details here for those who can’t make it. If you are planning to be there, you might bump into me (probably literally!) If you let me know, I’ll wobble over and say hi.
Just a quick post to link to this article, which I thought some readers might find interesting.
Thomas Brown
A council has been held responsible for an accident which left a 10-year-old pupil with “catastrophic” brain damage.
Thomas Brown, now 18, attended Ladywell School in Motherwell when he fell on a paintbrush which pierced his eye.
The Court of Session in Edinburgh ruled that North Lanarkshire Council failed to prevent a foreseeable risk of harm.
Mr Brown’s father, Christopher, is seeking damages of £2.5m. The court will rule on the level of compensation at a later date.
Judge Lady Dorrian heard that the accident happened while Thomas and his classmates were working on scenery for a school show in April 2003.
They were kneeling or crouching on the floor painting four sheets of paper which had been stuck together. The paper was too big to fit on a desk.
A girl stood up and bumped into Thomas, causing him to topple over and fall onto the paintbrush of a third child.
The pointed end of the foot-long thin brush went into his left eye.
The court heard that the accident had left him with no sight in his left eye and he had also suffered “a number of permanent disabilities”, including poor concentration and memory and significant fatigue.
In the action, it was alleged the accident had affected Thomas’s chances of finding a job and that it was unlikely he would be able to live independently in future.
Lady Dorrian was told that since the accident the local authority had issued a “safety flash” warning, stopping children working on the floor and banning the use of long paintbrushes.
Mr Brown claimed that the “risk assessment” carried out after his son was hurt should have been done before the accident, and could have prevented the tragedy.
He also claimed that those supervising the class at the time were at fault.
In her written ruling, Lady Dorrian said: “Foreseeability is not the same as frequency – an accident might rarely happen yet nevertheless be foreseeable.”
She said that the teachers present at the time seemed to be aware of some dangers but had not taken others into account.
“When one looks at the whole circumstances of the use of the brush a real risk of injury emerges as foreseeable,” she said.
“A reasonable person in the position of the teachers would have taken steps to prevent that foreseeable risk of harm to Thomas.”
The judge said the work could have been done on separate sheets of paper with safer paintbrushes.
She added: “There was no persuasive reason why the task could not have been done at desks.”
A spokesman for North Lanarkshire Council said: “We are studying the court’s findings and it would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage.”
BBC – Parent fights ‘segregation’ school in Crystal Palace
Vodpod videos no longer available.
I can’t tell you how upset I am to hear of this case. My friends and I faced similar situations when we tried to get into mainstream schools, but that was in the 1990s. Now that the Disability Discrimination Act exists, we really hoped that something like this would never happen again. Unfortunately, it seems, we’ve been very wrong.
When will this end? What will it take? How many loving parents and intelligent disabled children will have to suffer before schools realise how wrong they are?
This post is part of the Inclusion Rules! Debate at Same Difference.
A New Book For DisAbled Parents
I’m linking to this article, which explains how some DisAbled women coped with pregnancy, and mentions a new book to help those who are doing just that.
This fits well with the DisAbility And Parenting debate at Same Difference.
Please Read If You Follow Matt Brown On Twitter!
I’ve just read that Matt Brown, AKA @coastaltrek, has been arrested for fraud.
Those of you who are on Twitter may remember him. His twitter profile reads:
Review Of Work Capability Assessment To Publish Findings
A report on the government’s methods to test whether people are too ill or disabled to work is to be published.
The coalition is investigating the “fairness and effectiveness” of reforms brought in by Labour to cut the number of benefit claimants.
The Work Capability Assessment, introduced in 2008, reformed the medical testing of whether people are unable to do a job.
Incapacity benefits cost £13.4bn in 2009/10, official figures say.
By March 2014, ministers want to reassess everyone on such benefits to see if they are ready and fit for some sort of work.
‘Functional assessment’
In November 2009, there were 2.6 million people of working age on incapacity benefits in Britain.
Under the Work Capability Assessment, people are assessed through a “functional health assessment”, denoting their ability to work.
This replaced the use of a “diagnostic medical assessment” by a GP or specialist, which focused on their particular condition.
Prior to the launch of the new system, it was expected that around half of claimants being tested would be declared fit for work.
Since then, however, the figure has risen to about 66%.
The review panel, led by Professor Malcolm Harrington, will deliver its findings later on Tuesday morning, after which the government will respond.
Eva Higgins
A three-year-old girl from Greater Manchester with cystic fibrosis has received national recognition for her swimming abilities.
Eva Higgins has been named Amateur Swimming Association Disabled Swimmer of the Year for being able to swim more than 100m, despite her condition.
She has to take 40 pills and needs two hours treatment a day but this is forgotten when she jumps in the pool.
“We want to inspire other children,” her mother Penny Higgins said.
Lung infections
The little swimmer was first introduced to the water when she was a couple of months old. Since she has become the youngest child at Aqua Babies to earn 5m, 10m, 15m and 20m badges.
“When Eva was born we were told that the very best thing we could do for her was to get her exercising and her lungs exercising,” her mother said.
“Our son was already at Aqua Babies so we thought we would take her too.
“She just got into the pool, no crying or anything – she just went from strength to strength.”
Eva is prone to lung and chest infections which means she has to miss the odd swimming lesson.
“She gets very frustrated, but she does understand there are times when she can’t do it.
“When she next gets in the pool she’s absolutely busting to get in, she’s in a world of her own, she wouldn’t stop until you told her to stop.
“When you see the looks on other people’s faces when she jumps in and she bobs back up again.
“They find it hard to believe that someone so small can bob back up again.”
Inclusive Education In India
Inclusive education is something I’ve always passionately supported, so I was pleased to see this article, about how people in India are working to make it happen.
Stem Cells Could Help Blind People See
Blind patients suffering from a type of eye disease that strikes in childhood will become the second group of people in the world to receive stem cells derived from spare IVF embryos left over from fertility treatment.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given the go-ahead for the controversial transplant of embryonic stem cells into the eyes of patients with Stargardt’s macular degeneration, where the light-sensitive retina cells at the back of eye are destroyed.
The announcement follows the first injection of embryonic stem cells into a patient in the US who is partially paralysed as a result of a spinal cord injury. Last October, a US biotechnology company, Geron, announced the start of the first clinical trial of embryonic stem cells with the hope of repairing damaged nerves.
Another US biotechnology firm, Advanced Cell Technology, has now been given approval for a second clinical trial involving the injection of thousands of embryonic stem cells into the eyes of a dozen adult patients with a juvenile form of macular degeneration.
Robert Lanza, the company’s chief scientific officer, said that the first patient could receive the stem cell transplants early in the new year and although the trial is designed primarily to assess safety, the first signs of visual improvement may be apparent within weeks.
“Talking to the clinicians, we could see something in six weeks, that’s when we think we may see some improvements. It really depends on individual patients but that’s a reasonable time frame when something may start to happen,” Dr Lanza said.
Embryonic stem cells, which are derived from IVF embryos just a few days old, have the ability to develop into any of the dozens of specialised cells of the body. Researchers believe they could revolutionise medicine because of their ability to repair damaged tissues and organs in situ without the need for whole-organ transplants.
However, “pro-life” groups such as the Roman Catholic Church are bitterly opposed to the practice which they say involves the deliberate destruction of potential human beings – even if they are only 3-day old embryos.
Last week, a Glasgow man in his 60s with stroke damage to his brain became the world’s first person to receive injections of stem cells derived from an aborted foetus as part of a clinical trial to test the safety of foetal stem cells, which are believed to be less powerful than embryonic stem cells in terms of regenerative ability.
Dr Lanza said that the clinical trial on patients with Stargardt’s disease will involve several clinics across America, including the Casey Eye Institute in Portland, Oregon, the University of Massachusetts in Worcester and the New Jersey Medical School, Newark.
The first three patients will receive injections of 50,000 embryonic stem cells, the second set will receive 100,000 cells and the highest dose will be 200,000 cells. Animal studies have shown dramatic improvements in eye sight following the lowest dose, Dr Lanza said. “We’ve tested these cells in animal models of eye disease. In rats, we’ve seen 100 per cent improvement in visual performance over untreated animals without any adverse effects,” he said.
Norfolk Wins Wheelchair Masters
Peter Norfolk has finished the season as world number one quad singles player after taking the end-of-year Wheelchair Masters title in Amsterdam.
The Briton beat American David Wagner 6-3 7-6 (7-4) in the final for this third Masters title since 2006.
It is the sixth time in eight years he has ended a year top of the rankings.
Meanwhile, Dutch wheelchair tennis star Esther Vergeer took her remarkable run to 400 consecutive victories as she advanced to the final.
Vergeer, who is unbeaten at the event since her debut in 1998, brought up the landmark by beating compatriot Jiske Griffioen 6-3 6-0, a win that extended her record to 609 wins against 25 losses.
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606: DEBATE
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Speaking on her feed on social media site Twitter, the 29-year-old said: “I won my semi final, that means 400 wins in a row now. Unbelievable! Tomorrow the final against Daniela Di Toro.”
While Vergeer will go into the final as an overwhelming favourite to land a 103rd consecutive title, Norfolk can reflect on another successful week in which he beat the two men directly below him in the rankings – Wagner and Sweden’s Johan Andersson.
Tennis Foundation National Programme coach Stuart Wilkinson said of the 49-year-old: “Peter stayed mentally tough all week. It was a great effort and much deserved.”
Elsewhere Kevin Simpson retained his men’s singles title at the Beit Halochem tournament in Israel, giving the Scot his third ITF Futures titles since September.
After a first round bye, top seed Simpson won all three of his matches against Israeli opposition in straight sets, clinching the title with a narrow 7-6 (7-3), 6-4 victory over second seed Asaaf Stokol to maintain his ranking on the fringes of the world’s top 40.
Simpson is now set to end his season on the 2010 NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour at next month’s Prague Cup Czech Indoor.
This Blog Now Has A Forum!
Readers, I have just created a brand new forum for this blog! Please visit it here: http://samedifferenceblog.proboards.com/index.cgi
Please do leave your thoughts, comments and discussions about anything related to disability. See it as an extention of the comments sections here.
There are three boards there at the moment. One general board, one for carers, and one for people with DisAbilities. Would you like to see any others? Do let me know!
UK Disability History Month Starts Today
Today marks the start of the first UK Disability History Month, which will run until 22 December. This Month was thought up by Richard Rieser, a well known Disability Rights Campaigner. He is the Month’s Co-ordinator.
As a disabled person, I am naturally very pleased and excited that this month has been created, and hope to see it becoming an annual event.
OFT To Study Mobility Aid Market
Mobility aids will be scrutinised by the Office of Fair Trading to determine whether consumers are well informed and treated fairly. The study, due to start early next year, will also consider whether the industry, which was worth £500m in 2008, is competitive.
Mobility aids are used by the elderly, disabled and those with medical conditions. They include wheelchairs, scooters, stair lifts, bath aids, hoists and adjustable beds.
The sector attracted 5,000 calls last year to Consumer Direct, the OFT-managed advice service, from people complaining or asking for advice. Consumer groups are concerned that the sector is not working well, with high prices and not enough choice, and that it is selling products that do not always meet a consumer’s needs.
Prashant Vaze, head of fair markets at Consumer Focus, said: “Our research shows that there are potentially big problems in this area. Clearly, people using mobility aids are among the most vulnerable in our society and action needs to be taken to ensure they do not lose out.”
Peter Vicary-Smith, chief executive of Which?, says: “We know there are problems with the way mobility aids are sold; our research shows that sales techniques range from the questionable to the downright illegal. If the OFT’s study finds similar problems – and we believe it will – they’ll be able to take action.”
Read about the study at http://tinyurl.com/3ye5ary. To contribute email mobilityaids@oft.gsi.gov.uk or write to Mobility Aids Team, Goods Group, OFT, Fleetbank House, 2-6 Salisbury Square, London EC4Y 8JX.
Pc David Rathband Switches On Christmas Lights In His Hometown
The policeman shot and blinded by gunman Raoul Moat has switched on the Christmas lights in his home town of Stafford.
Pc David Rathband was shot in the face as he sat in his patrol car in Newcastle upon Tyne in July.
He said it was “an absolute honour” to perform the ceremony after members of the public nominated who they wanted.
Mr Rathband has said that he “bore no malice” towards Moat, who later shot himself in Rothbury, Northumberland.
Moat shot his ex-girlfriend Samantha Stobbart and her new boyfriend Chris Brown – killing him – before attacking Pc Rathband.
He was found following a massive manhunt in Northumberland.
Pc Rathband, from Northumbria Police, said when he was invited to Saturday’s Stafford ceremony he had no idea he had been put up for nomination.
‘Extremely proud’
He added: “On the top of the Pride of Britain [awards] and the Pride of Northumberland it’s a huge honour.
“What’s happened to me four-and-a-half months ago is a distant memory for most people and hopefully one day it will be that for me.
“But to come back to your home town and do something which I’ve watched as a child in front of many people is an absolute honour and I’m extremely proud to be here.”
Asked about what he thought about being invited to such events and recognised for bravery, he said: “When you look at what I had been through and what my family have been through, it’s a bittersweet emotion.
“[I’m] extremely proud and [it’s] a great moment to come to… events such as this, but how bitter a feeling is it to have lost your sight?”
Pc Rathband has set up a charity called the Blue Lamp Foundation and has been trying to raise £1m to help injured members of the emergency services.
Beatrice Howden In The Yorkshire Post
You may remember the story of Beatrice Howden, which I featured on the site a few months ago. Today, I am pleased to be able to link to an article about Beatrice and her family which was published in yesterday’s Yorkshire Post.
I hope Beatrice gets herself mobile very very soon!
