United Kingdom
This page features the news on disability from United Kingdom in the Debrief Library. See also news from other countries.
Contents
Accessibility and Design
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Housing
Outrage as ministers reject post-Grenfell safety plans for disabled people “Personal fire evacuation plans were in public inquiry’s proposals, which ministers had said they would ‘accept in full’” (May, the Guardian) See further detail on inside housing.
Ageing
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Disability and ageing – time to think outside our silos? (Nov, Centre for Better Ageing)
COVID-19
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Impact
‘Government Just Made it Worse’: COVID’s Disproportionate Impact on Disabled People of Colour Revealed. (Feb, Byline Times)
Documenting the Pandemic for Disabled people: Covid Disability Archive
Covid-19 and the Crisis in Social Care: Exploring the Experiences of Disabled People in the Pandemic: “the social care crisis has challenged the goal of independent living.”. (Apr, CUP)
Health and healthcare for people with disabilities in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic: “As the UK opens up, it is important that health care services and social policy address the poor mental health and social isolation of people with disability so that the inequalities occurring early in the pandemic do not become further entrenched.” (Jan, Disability and Health Journal)
COVID-19 pandemic impact on psychotropic prescribing for adults with intellectual disability: an observational study in English specialist community services: "The pandemic caused an increase in psychotropic prescribing associated with lockdown severity and urban settings." (Jan, BJPsych)
Response
‘They gave her a bed to die in’: family of woman with Down’s Syndrome denied intensive care seek answers from Covid-19 inquiry. (Jul, the Guardian)
Disabled people are being left out of COVID recovery. “Here are five ways to change that” (Apr, the Conversation)
‘Completely Inhumane’: Government’s Relaxed Approach to COVID Represents a Regression for Disabled People’s Rights (Mar, Byline Times)
Vaccination
Booster jabs are vital – why is it so difficult for clinically vulnerable people to access them? (Dec, the Guardian)
Living with COVID
Two-thirds of UK workers with long Covid have faced unfair treatment, says report (based on survey of 3,000). (Mar, the Guardian)
Living with long Covid series exploring the “millions of lives impacted by long Covid” (Oct, the Guardian)
Doctors with long Covid say they have been denied disability benefits. (Jun, the Guardian)
Alarm after EHRC says long Covid should not be treated as disability (May, the Guardian)
Civil Society and Community
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Dementia and Hope a vision for “dismantling the barriers which disable a million people in the UK” (Jan, One Dementia Voice)
Disabled people have been at the heart of ‘direct action’ protest for years – what do we do now? Claiming the right to protest. (Jan, The Independent)
First orthodox siddur for people with disabilities launched in UK (Jun, Jerusalem Post)
Disabled youth participation within activism and social movement bases: “[Young disabled people] feel pressure to agree with those who have identified the cause, advised by established figures on ways in which they should demonstrate resistance, and are requested to provide recommendations that will improve the situation for young people: a limited involvement.” (Jun, Current Sociology)
Radio play Pride and Protest offers a window into the current struggle for disability rights. (May, Disability Arts Online)
Tickboxes and Tokenism? Service User Involvement Report 2022 (Feb, Shaping our Lives)
Climate Crisis and Environment
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Disabled People Must Not Pay The Price For Clean Air (Aug, Bristol Disability Equality Forum)
The people making a difference: profile of a climate activist: “a heavy wheelchair is handy for wrongfooting the police”. (Sep, the Guardian)
Protest for All a guide for climate change groups on making their protests accessible for disabled people. (link to pdf, Sep, Bristol Disability Equality Forum)
‘There’s no support for us at all’: The realities of caring for a disabled child during a heatwave. (Jul, Big Issue)
Disability and the heatwave: Cooling solutions and disability as weather alert goes red (Jul, BBC)
City’s co-produced climate action plan ‘is a world first’
featuring Bristol's climate plan, which we also covered on the debrief (Jul, Disability News Service)
Glasgow disabled facing hostility for car use “Disabled people are facing "climate-change themed" hostility and aggression for using cars, according to a charity.” (May, The Herald)
A new Community Climate Action Plan in Bristol (Mar, Bristol DEF)
Up to the Challenge report examining the National Disability Strategy and how it addresses climate change. "Disabled people across the country are excluded from the important work to tackle climate change." (Feb, Oxford)
For disabled environmentalists discrimination and exclusion are a daily reality (Jan, Greenpeace)
Communication and Language
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Sign Languages
Work to be done on census figures for BSL: discusses methodology and estimates 150,000 BSL signers in the country. (Nov, BDA)
Sign language used in court as deaf jurors with own interpreters used for first time in England. (Sep, Daily Mail)
Sign Language is My Language a series of “new perspectives on the experience of being deaf in 21st-century Britain.” (Sep, BBC)
Why I co-created a Twitter bot for BSL interpreter requests (Jul, The Limping Chicken)
A Sociolinguistic History of British Sign Language in Northern Ireland. "The study shows how the Protestant schools played an important role in the transmission of BSL in the island of Ireland." (Mar, Sign Language Studies)
British Sign Language to become recognised language in the UK (Jan, the Guardian)
Why everyone should learn some sign language (Jan, New Scientist)
Braille
"These days the argument for and against Braille continues in several arenas. Blind people are divided in regards to its usefulness, schools debate whether it is worth recruiting qualified teachers, and governments fail to set aside funding to either train those teachers or fund their employment in local authorities. ‘Has technology replaced Braille?’ is a question I hear thrown around by the media more often than I should, usually accompanied by an article about a technology that will revolutionise how blind people read, rendering Braille unnecessary. It has not failed to escape me that whilst I’ve seen countless such articles, Braille is still firmly in place as the writing system used by blind people globally." (Jan, Catch These Words)
Culture, Entertainment and Media
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Overview
Barbara Hulme shares a showcase of watercolour portrait paintings titled 'Men's Health' – highlighting their disability/ health stories. (Feb, Disability Arts Online)
Unfinish’d sympathy: can literature get over reading disability morally? (Sep, the Guardian)
Equity Guide for Casting Deaf, Disabled & Neurodiverse Dancers (Equity)
‘Don’t tone it down’ – inside the invasion of British museums by disabled artists. (Jun, the Guardian)
Being Hybrid A guide to hybrid events for the literature sector. (Jun, Spread the Word)
TV and Film
“An Irish Goodbye:” A New Standard for Disability-Focused Stories. (Jan, Respect Ability)
Doctor Who casting Ruth Madeley is game-changing for disabled fans. (Jan, Radio Times)
The 5 As: our standards for disability inclusion in the television sector. (Dec, BBC)
Rose Ayling-Ellis, winner of last year's Strictly Come Dancing, important reflections on representation: ‘I’m done with being token deaf character on TV’: “I had to break through countless barriers to get to where I am. It’s been a lonely, upsetting journey, and whilst winning Strictly was an amazing experience, it shouldn’t be allowed to conceal the hardships I have been through to get here.” (Aug, the Guardian) It's worth watching the whole speech.
Channel4 Disability Code of Portrayal commits to more nuanced approaches in portrayal of disabled people, involving disabled people themselves. (Jul, Channel 4)
Britain's Got Talent 2022 Eva Abley's performances, a 14 year-old comedian. (May, Adnan Entertainment)
Starring Rosie Jones Disability Benefits is a comedy take on getting disability benefits from the government, and if that doesn't work, getting the disability benefit in a life of crime. (May, Channel 4)
Broadcasters unite to create ‘passports’ “that will remove barriers and support better inclusion of disabled people and other colleagues at work.” (Mar, Channel 4)
Let’s storm Parliament! Then Barbara Met Alan is a film from BBC on the ”punks who risked their lives to fix ableist Britain”. See also on “these stories change how people think”. (Mar, the Guardian) One line I enjoyed from the film: “It was 1990, nothing in law, just a pat on the head and a fuck off if you moan too much”. See also a comment on what the film misses out.
‘It’s time for us to live our lives to the full’. Line of Duty’s Tommy Jessop on changing the world for people with Down’s syndrome. (Feb, the Guardian)
I'm thrilled that Rose Ayling-Ellis won Strictly Come Dancing: see her interview in the Guardian talking about her life, career and the show. (Dec, the Guardian)
Media
Disability in Advertising: Is Representation Finally Improving? (Feb, Just Copy)
The media are failing disabled people. “Lucy Webster explains why – and how they can do better” (Nov, Tortoise)
BBC Unveils Latest Statistics on Disability, Ethnicity Representation. “53% of teams monitored achieving their targets for disability representation, an increase of 35 percentage points over the last year and a half.” (Apr, Variety)
Channel 4 creative brief Disability Disruption commission "ripping up the playbook and showing disabled people as they have never been seen before on British TV." (Feb, Channel 4) See also coverage on Broadcast.
Data and Research
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Fall in disabled older people in census data ‘could be due to pandemic’, or the change in wording of the census question. (Feb, The Independent) More young people declared disability in the census after inclusion of mental health in the question about disability.
Childhood disability, social class and social mobility: A neglected relationship. “We specifically focus on the importance of social class for disabled young people's outcomes, emphasizing the need for intersectional analyses of disability inequalities.” (Sep, The British Journal of Sociology)
Outcomes for disabled people in the UK: 2021 detailed statistics from a range of datasets. (Feb, ONS)
Digital Accessibility and Technology
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Overview
It's not all doom and gloom: What the pandemic has taught us about digitally inclusive practices that support people with learning disabilities to access and use technologies. (Aug, British Journal of Learning Disabilities)
Social Media
Teen beauty queen's TikTok account blocked over acne. (Jan, BBC)
As a disabled person, social media has been a lifeline "The internet bypasses what keeps us apart: inaccessible transport, a lack of appropriate care, pain and fatigue. [...] The real power of the disability community, [comes] in the slow accumulation of knowledge that accrues from bearing witness to each other’s lives." (Jan, Financial Times)
Economics and Social Protection
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Overview
Broke and disabled in Tory Britain: the reality of life on one meal a day. (Mar, the Guardian)
Disabled young people have less upward social mobility than their peers – and class background makes this worse. (Jan, the Conversation)
Disabled people among hardest hit by cost of living crisis, finds study. ‘Disabled people in the UK are much more likely to struggle to heat their homes and cut back on food this winter, according to a report highlighting “massive” income gaps amid the cost of living squeeze.’ (Jan, the Guardian)
Thousands of vulnerable people cut off from gas and electricity for days at a time. (Dec, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism) And this is just the data from last winter.
Blind people amongst those worst affected by cost of living crisis (Oct, City A.M.)
What actions are people taking because of the rising cost of living? “Around 4 in 10 disabled people experiencing rising cost of living cut back on food and essentials” (Aug, ONS)
From disability to destitution devastating analysis on the economic situation of persons with disabilities. (Jul, JRF)
Disabled people's experiences with activities, goods and services. “Disabled people with invisible impairments could face a conflict between needing support but not wanting to have to identify themselves as disabled to access it, because of perceived external judgement and negative stereotypes regarding disability; this contributed to a sense of vulnerability which people felt negatively impacted their wellbeing.” (Jul, ONS)
‘I see price rises of 25-50%’: how inflation is affecting people with a disability or illness (Jul, the Guardian)
A survey of almost 700 people What disabled consumers choose to buy and why “90 per cent were affected at the decision-making stage of purchases by either; limitations of design, limitations in available information, or how information was presented.” (Jun, BDF) See also on Forbes.
In a survey of 1,200 disabled people, more than half feel “anxious, depressed or hopeless” about financial worries and problems (Apr, Yahoo! News)
Disabled people facing ‘impossible choices to survive’ in cost of living crisis, “amid a perfect storm of soaring energy prices, increasing fuel and food costs and cuts to government support”. (Mar, the Guardian)
Rising living costs will push more disabled people into destitution "Benefits are falling far behind the extra costs associated with disability," (Feb, New Statesman)
New data shows food insecurity major challenge to levelling up agenda "People who are limited a lot by disability are approximately 5 times more likely to be food insecure (in the past six months) than people who aren’t living with a disability." (Feb, Food Foundation)
Financial Inclusion
New debit card lets relatives track spending of relatives with dementia. (Mar, This is Money)
Social Protection
Social care costs see thousands chased for debt. “More than 60,000 adults with disabilities and long-term illnesses in England were chased for debts by councils last year after failing to pay for their social care support at home.” (Feb, BBC)
UK government errors denied thousands disability benefits: “Campaigners hit out after data reveals majority of successful appeals were due to Department for Work and Pensions mistakes” (Oct, the Guardian)
Five-month disability benefits delay causing hardship (Jul, the Guardian)
Great video on how support workers can enable a social life (Apr, Open Future Learning)
Government spent £440m fighting disability claimants as whistleblowers claim system broken. (Apr, ITV)
Disabled People trapped waiting years for vital home adaptations (Apr, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism)
Secret DWP report reveals unmet needs of disability benefit claimants (Feb, Disability News Service)
Education and Childhood
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Overview
Children with Disabilities forced to travel hundreds of miles for school. (Apr, The Bureau)
Changing Children’s Attitudes to Disability through Music: "A core driver for change appeared to be sharing enjoyable musical activities with competent musicians who had disabilities." (Feb, Disabilities)
Higher Education
Disabled students are being let down by universities (Jun, Metro)
Employment, Business and Work
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Why employer inflexibility matters for the recruitment, retention and progression of disabled workers.
“Whilst some disabled people may need specific aids, adaptions, or equipment in order to facilitate their ability to work, the vast majority only require changes in the way in which work is organised. In the same way that it offers working parents the opportunity to balance family life with work, flexible working can offer disabled people a way to accommodate requirements arising from their impairment. However, a common complaint made by disabled people is a lack of employer flexibility in terms of where, when, and how work can be performed. Despite disabled workers having a legal right to flexible working as a reasonable adjustment under the provision of the Equality Act (2010), employers often refuse.” (Jan, Disability & Society)
Non-disabled workers paid 17% more than disabled peers. Disabled women face the biggest pay gap and it persists for workers throughout their careers. (Nov, TUC)
Positively Purple a new book from Kate Nash on building an inclusive culture in business. (Oct, KoganPage)
Disability Pay Gap: “Mandatory reporting would only capture a snippet of the full picture as only large organisations would be required to report”. (Jul)
Employers influencing disabled people’s employment through responses to reasonable adjustments. Employer reactions to requests for adjustments in the workplace go on to influence the rest of disabled people's careers. (Jul, Disability and Society)
‘I was dismissed as simple’: People reveal the reality of disability discrimination at work (May, Metro.co.uk)
The blind farmer: ‘It’s all I ever wanted to do. Now I can help others do it’ (May, the Guardian)
Disability pay gaps in the UK: 2021 “The disability pay gap, the gap between median pay for disabled employees and non-disabled employees, was 13.8% in 2021”. There is a slightly wider pay-gap for men with disabilities, and considerably wider for those with more activity limitations, or with autism listed as their main impairment. (Apr, ONS)
Business Without Barriers: interviews with successful disabled entrepreneurs and personal accounts from employers who are helping to break down barriers to employment. (FSB)
Disability Smart Awards (Dec, Business Disability Forum)
Health
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Thousands with learning disabilities trapped in hospital, some for years “because of a lack of psychological support and overly complicated treatment systems” (Mar, the Guardian)
National Health Service crisis: Why are disabled people disproportionately affected? (Jan, BBC)
Recognising lived experience is essential to empowering disabled patients. (Sep, BMJ)
Will the NHS Care for Me? feature by a disabled person on why people with a learning disability are more than twice as likely to die from avoidable causes than the rest of the population. (Oct, BBC)
Fractured, fighting, fixed: my personal experiences in hospital as a base to reflect on why medical systems struggle with inclusion. (Sep, Disability Debrief)
A study on avoidable mortality in children/young people with intellectual disabilities. “Children with intellectual disabilities had significantly higher rates of all-cause, avoidable, treatable and preventable mortality than their peers. The largest differences were for treatable mortality, particularly at ages 5–9 years. Interventions to improve healthcare to reduce treatable mortality should be a priority for children/young people with intellectual disabilities.” (Sep, BMJ Open)
Warning over early deaths of learning disabled: “adults with a learning disability were twice as likely to die from preventable illnesses.” (Aug, BBC)
A BBC show Ellie Simmonds: A World Without Dwarfism?
“A pioneering drug is coming on the market that promises to make children with achondroplasia - Ellie’s form of dwarfism - grow closer to average height. A genetic condition, achondroplasia is the most common type of dwarfism in the UK, and the new treatment raises the question: if cutting-edge medicine can stop disability in its tracks, should we use it?” (Apr, BBC)
History and Memorial
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Overview
Everywhere and Nowhere short film “spotlights 10 fascinating stories, objects and sites with connections to histories of disability from the National Trust’s buildings and landscapes, and collections and historical records.” (Jan, University of Leicester Research Centre)
Disabled people’s activism on exhibition at the People's History Museum (Dec, Disability Arts Online)
Ebooks of Paul Hunt's writings. “Paul Hunt was one of the founders of the Disabled People's Movement in Britain, and one of the first activists to argue for the social model of disability.” (Oct, GMCDP)
A review of Beholding Disability in Renaissance England a book which argues that “by focusing on disability in Renaissance texts we can collapse barriers between us and the past, while at the same time gain new perspectives on both historical and contemporary perceptions of the disabled body.” (Sep, H-Disability)
Book review of Shakespeare and Disability Studies, a book which argues that a disability studies view should not focus just on disabled characters but rather ‘theater as a “social phenomenon” in which both disabled and nondisabled bodyminds engage with one another and the text.’ (Aug, Disability Studies Community)
Book review of Those They Called Idiots: The Idea of the Disabled Mind from 1700 to the Present Day. “The conflation of race and intelligence is vividly documented in this volume. The long and complex history of ideas that have bound these concepts together helps us understand today’s deeply institutionalized racism as well as the entrenched we/they ableism of our educational and social service institutions.” (Aug, Disability Studies Community)
Dr Peter Scott-Morgan dies: Tributes to world's first 'cyborg' ‘And when I say “Cyborg”, I don’t just mean any old cyborg, you understand, but by far the most advanced human cybernetic organism ever created in 13.8 billion years.’ (Jun, Metro.co.uk)
‘The lady without legs or arms’: how an artist shattered Victorian ideas about disability. (May, the Guardian)
The Jewish Deaf Association launch new website: Jewish Deaf History (London) discussion of the history and website. (May, Limping Chicken)
The 1921 census is a snapshot of a post-war Britain where disability suddenly became visible: "Poignant, defiant notes by men living with war wounds show the roots of the ongoing fight for disability rights taking hold". (Jan, Inews)
Remembering Judy Heumann
Samantha Renke on how Judith Heumann was, and is, my role model. (Mar, Metro.co.uk)
Humanitarian, Migrants and Refugees
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Migration
Vulnerable asylum seekers 'prisoners in their own homes' after fleeing war zones. “Many claim they have been placed in unsuitable properties that are littered with tripping hazards and have broken lifts.” (Feb, Mirror)
Jamaicans with disabilities facing ‘unjust’ deportation from UK. “Most of the Jamaicans facing deportation next week on a government flight live with a disability or health problem and came to Britain as children” (May, Independent)
Non-verbal black teenager who has never left UK detained at immigration centre. “Boy who went missing from hospital arrested and held at Gatwick facility after being wrongly recorded as Nigerian” (Apr, the Guardian)
A Mural on Disability and Migration bringing together the disabled movement and asylum sector. (Youtube, Dec, Disability Murals)
Institutions and Deinstitutionalization
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Brother, do you love me? The cry for help that sparked a care-home rescue mission. (Oct, the Guardian)
A new book, open access, Deprivation of Liberty in the Shadows of the Institution on how restrictive practices from institutions continued as services were provided in the community. (Mar, Bristol University Press)
My Freedom A retrospective on the 10th anniversary of abuse reported at residential facility Winterbourne View. "My freedom means I go to bed when I want." (Bemix)
The shameful legacy of the Lennox Castle hospital Scotland's largest institutiono for people with learning disabilities, which closed 20 years ago. (Jan, BBC)
International Cooperation
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UK government strategy: Sightsavers calls for further action for women and girls with disabilities. (Mar, Sightsavers)
On the new International Development Strategy, People with Disabilities don’t have the luxury of time “there is no observable strategy to focus concerted efforts on eradicating poverty and improving the lives of the most marginalised.” (May, CBM UK)
UK Government's Strategy for International Development must include older people “we are disappointed that the Strategy did not refer explicitly to the impact of global ageing, did not consider needs throughout the life course, or address the specific needs and rights of older people.” (May, Age International)
Meeting the Ambition of the new FCDO Disability Inclusion & Rights Strategy (Apr, CBM UK)
Launch of a new development policy, FCDO disability inclusion and rights strategy 2022 to 2030. See a blog post welcoming the new strategy from CBM UK. (Feb, Gov UK)
Justice Systems and Legal Capacity
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No longer free to be Deaf: Cultural, medical and social understandings of d/Deafness in prison: “there is little room for a cultural model of Deafness in prison, and in consequence, prison becomes medically deafening for Deaf prisoners.” (Nov, Disability and Society)
Pushing at the Boundaries of Legal Personhood. “Could we then imagine a framework of legal personhood that recognises persons with removeable parts?” (Jun, Frontiers of Sociolegal Studies)
Lived Experience and Opinion
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On the Debrief: Don't you have mercy on yourself? How we turn our isolation into connection (Feb, Disability Debrief)
‘I did not expect motherhood to legitimise me’: parenting with a disability – “four families share their eye-opening stories of love and joy” (Feb, the Guardian)
Moving Nowhere Here a poem by Kimberly Campanello. “I must be propped on pillows // to attempt anything at all // other than dream”. (Jan, Granta)
Why We Need Spaces to Discuss Disabled Joy in All Its Complexity Rather than Inspiration. (Jan, The Spill)
What London Is Like When You're Deaf. (Jan, Londonist)
The Disability Serviceland Song “a song about control, power and self-determination. Staring Ellie Goldstein.” (Dec, Open Future Learning)
“To be as disabled as I am is to have control of your life parcelled out to people you’ve never met and who will never know you. The doctor, the care recruiting firm, the dating agency. I am forever trying to claw it back; a decision made for myself here, a stand taken there. Sometimes I think I am succeeding, I can breathe a little easier. I feel in control - of my career, of where I’m going, of the small but vital details of how I live my everyday life. And then the dam breaks and the water is rushing again, seemingly higher than before. I find myself wondering whether this time it’ll finally flow over my head.” (Dec, The View From Down Here)
Invisible: Documentary about 6 disabled women activists. (Dec, Tend Project)
'Being grabbed, pushed or touched without warning is terrifying when you can’t see' (Jul, Mirror)
How I found my own disability pride “Disability pride came slowly to me, like dawn breaking on a December morning.” (Jul, The View from Down Here)
Disabled people don’t need your outrage – we need you to fight with us for change (Jul, the Guardian)
What Does it Mean to Forge a Body? Autonomy through Disability Cures and Gender Transition (Apr, Catch these Words)
I'm treated differently depending on what kind of wheelchair I use - on the difference between using a manual and powered wheelchair. (Feb, Metro)
“No you’re not” collection of profiles of autistic women (Feb, Wellcome Collection)
My Life With Dynamic Disabilities: What You Should Know (Dec, Refinery29)
Unbound an animation reacting to the phrase "wheelchair bound": "my wheels travel the world, and they dance, whirl in light and colour" (subtitles but no visual description, Dec, BBC)
Mental Health
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The Guardian view on mental health privatisation: unsafe spaces. “Businesses that fail patients while making profit margins of 15%-20% are no substitute for investment in the NHS” (Apr, the Guardian)
Autistic people are six times more likely to attempt suicide – poor mental health support may be to blame (Apr, The Conversation)
A critique of digital mental health via assessing the psychodigitalisation of the COVID-19 crisis (Feb, Psychotherapy and Politics International)
Mobility, Travel, Transport and Tourism
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Overview
Accessible Electric Vehicle Charging (Jan, Motability)
A Disability-Inclusive Micromobility Charter the result of roundtables discussing micro-mobility transport options such as electric scooters. (Jan, Open Inclusion)
How can electric vehicles be made more accessible to disabled people? (Sep, Environment Journal)
‘I have to plan for if I am stranded, if I am dropped, if my chair is damaged’: the perils of travelling while disabled. (Aug, the Guardian)
Disabled passengers bearing brunt of travel disruption (Jun, the Guardian)
Disabled campaigners are to thank for accessibility on the Elizabeth Line “A decade ago, Transport for All campaigned hard for the Line to be accessible, and were successful in securing £33 million additional investment to make this happen” (May, Transport for All) The Elizabeth Line will make a big difference for me in getting across London. Can't wait to try it out.
Death of blind man hit by train ruled accident. ‘Matt Stringer, chief executive of the Royal National Institute of Blind People, said the death "was not an isolated incident".’ (May, BBC) See also other experiences and reflections on access issues at train stations.
Air Travel
A campaign for Rights on flights it’s time for the air travel industry to take Disabled people seriously. (Feb, Disability Rights UK)
Heathrow and other airports criticised by watchdog after disabled passengers missed summer flights. (Dec, the Guardian)
Airports must stop failing disabled passengers, says UK regulator. (Jun, the Guardian)
Policy and Rights
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UK Ministry of Justice Treats People with Disabilities as an Afterthought: "Human Rights Act Consultation Exercise Fails Fully to Include People with Disabilities". (Mar, Human Rights Watch)
Bristol appoints disability equality commissioners to tackle inequality Interesting to see this at city-level. (Feb, Bristol)
High Court declares National Disability Strategy unlawful due to inadequate consultation (Jan, Bindmans)
Politics and Elections
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MP with cerebral palsy has been mocked and accused of being drunk. (Mar, Independent)
‘I’ve always felt these spaces were ours’: disability activism and austerity capitalism, reflections on an interview with Disabled People Against the Cuts. (Feb, City)
Breaking down Barriers: a report on Improving Disabled Representation & Participation (Mar, Disability Policy Centre)
‘Deaf’ Liz Truss – a curious choice of insult reflecting on the Russian Foreign Minister's comments. (Limping Chicken)
Relationships, Sex and Reproductive Rights
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Do accessible sex toys exist? Podcast (no transcript, Feb, BBC)
Sport and Paralympics
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“I want motorsport to be accessible for disabled people.” (Jan, RedBull)
Did the Paralympic games change things for disabled people? The legacy ten years on. (Oct, Spirit of 2012)
Activity levels among disabled people have failed to return to pre-Covid levels (Jun, the Guardian)
‘Stare at me because I deserve to be stared at’: Lauren Steadman and the evolution of representation at the Paralympics (Mar, the 19th)
Violence and Harassment
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Kaylea Titford’s parents jailed for manslaughter after daughter died in ‘conditions unfit for any animal’. (Mar, the Guardian)
Formal support needs of disabled adult victim survivors of sexual violence. A qualitative research report. (Jan, Ministry of Justice)
War in Ukraine
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Appeals and Statements
Older people’s organisations across the UK call on the Prime Minister to take further action to support older people affected by war in Ukraine (10 Mar, Older People's Commissioner for Wales)
Evacuating or Leaving Ukraine
Ukrainian refugee family with disabled son denied accessible house by East Renfrewshire Council (Feb, STV News)