Stop Changes to Access to Work

On Tuesday 24^th October, campaigners, service users and MPs gathered at Portcullis House to launch ‘Barriers to Work’ – a report authored by Catherine Hale and commissioned by Inclusion London, based on a survey carried out by the StopChanges2AtW campaign.

‘Barriers to Work’ looks at what happened with Access to Work and how can the scheme be once again fit for purpose.

The meeting was chaired by Debbie Abrahams MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Sean McGovern, co-Chair of the TUC Disabled Workers’ Committee. Ellen Clifford from the StopChanges2AtW campaign introduced the recommendations for improving Deaf and Disabled people’s experience of Access to Work.

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Sickness and the Social Model of Disability

This is the first part in a series of blog posts that will explore the uneasy relationship between chronic illness and the social model of disability. From my perspective as a Sick person (more on that controversial word next time) I will explore why people with chronic illness often feel excluded from the Disability Rights Movement (DRM) that emerged out of the social model. But rather than reject the social model I’ll discuss how we, the Sick community, could claim it for ourselves and what a social model of chronic illness would look like. The crucial distinction between impairment and disability lies at the heart of the revolutionary Social Model of Disability that emerged in the 1970s – the model that underpins the disability rights and independent living movements. To paraphrase it simply, impairment is loss of bodily function, whereas disability is disadvantage imposed upon people with impairments due to hostile social attitudes or inaccessible physical environments.

The politics of stigma with ME/CFS

Last month my “shocking” report with Action for ME, Close to Collapse was released, showing the massive failure of the UK social care system to meet the needs of people with the chronic illness ME (otherwise known by the dreadful term Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) For anyone new to M.E., forget the implication that we’re just “tired all the time”. ME is extremely debilitating, both physically and mentally. In fact, research shows the ME patient population has lower scores for physical function and quality of life of any chronic disease group . So 97% of the 850 people with ME who took my survey needed help with 2 or more activities of daily living like going to the toilet, dressing or getting to a local shop. In terms of the Care Act, this means they met the main threshold of eligibility for social care in England. Yet only 6% were receiving a social care package. The news was not “shocking” to the ME community. Neglect, lack of support and even hostility from healt

Fulfilling Potential? ESA and the fate of the Work-Related Activity Group

We want Support, not Sanctions (Click here to tell your MP if you agree) The report into Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) that I’ve spent much of the last year producing has been released today. It reveals one more piece of the jigsaw of attacks on the dignity and livelihoods of disabled people under this Government (the scrapping of Disability Living Allowance, the closure of the Independent Living Fund, the notorious Work Capability Assessment and the equally infamous ‘Bedroom Tax’ being others). I have looked at the experience of sick and disabled people like myself, subjected to an aspect of ESA policy that promised to empower us, lift us out of poverty and include us in society. That is, the creation of the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG), which sends us on back-to-work schemes as a condition of receiving sickness benefit (or ESA). Just 5% of us in the WRAG on the main scheme – the Work Programme - have moved into work since 2011. I wrote this report to

Catherine Hale

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