Removal of specialist support leaves those wrongly assessed vulnerable to poverty and homelessness, campaigners warn A woman with learning difficulties, severe epilepsy, schizophrenia, cerebral palsy and asthma recently underwent an official assessment of her fitness for work, which concluded that there was nothing preventing her from taking up employment.
It’s right that the Met pay damages to an autistic teenager they restrained – disabled people should be able to trust the police During a school trip to a swimming pool four years ago, a 16-year-old boy was physically restrained by police, placed in handcuffs and leg irons, and taken to the cage of a police van. The teenager wasn’t looting trainers, wasn’t hurting anyone or damaging any property.
Campaigners fear that scrapping legal aid for clinical blunders will mean future victims will not have access to a reasonable life that compensation can buy Like many boys on the cusp of adolescence, Theodore is thinking about beer and fast cars. Top of his wish list is an orange Lamborghini, but for now he may have to settle for a high-speed wheelchair
Asda discovers the secret which eluded mediaeval alchemists – but take care where you park in Skipton…
Transcript of interview with Sally Bercow, who talks to disability campaigner Nicky Clark about her eldest child Oliver, who’s autistic Sally Bercow Well I suspected that there was something up with Oliver when he was about six months old. Becaues he would fixate on an object in the distance and not look at you and his eye contact, even at six months, was a bit skewed and I thought there is something a bit odd here
Michelle Mitchell, charity director general of Age UK, is calling on the government to embrace radical proposals on paying for elderly care Any day now, David Cameron will decide on Dilnot. The verdict on whether the government is to go ahead with reform of long-term care funding, as recommended by a commission headed by economist Andrew Dilnot , rests formally with the coalition cabinet, but the key to that will be the prime minister’s instinct
Jim Blair, a nurse consultant, is battling to remedy failures in the NHS to provide equal care for learning disabled people Jim Blair is unequivocal about why the
Families need to learn to sign for the sake of their deaf children – yet they are often denied the chance In the last few weeks, a video of a deaf mother and her two year-old daughter Ava having a dinner conversation in British Sign Language (BSL) has gone viral.
Mencap says deaths of at least 74 patients with learning disabilities were linked to institutional discrimination Lisa Sharpe was healthy at birth but at four and a half months old she became floppy and went into a coma. It left her severely brain damaged as a result of Reye’s syndrome, which damaged 90% of her brain, with cerebral palsy and epilepsy
There is a climate of hostility towards people for whom life is already difficult and it is being fostered by politicians and journalists Peter Greener endured a barrage of hate from his neighbour. Sometimes, it was eggs thrown at his house, stones thrown at his windows or paint thrown at his fence; more often, it was words hurled in his face: spastic, cripple, scum, scrounger. These assaults went on for months, leaving the former Nissan car-sprayer in floods of tears, feeling suicidal and on antidepressants
