Learning disability care hospital beds reduced
The number of hospital beds for people with learning disabilities and autism will be halved in England, the NHS has announced.
10 Nov 2015
The number of hospital beds for people with learning disabilities and autism will be halved in England, the NHS has announced.
Many people with Dyspraxia and other neurological deficits find interpreting the meaning of messages from what we see in the world around us a challenge. Of course some people without Dyspraxia sometimes experience these difficulties too, when trying to decode to us what seems like the impossible. I was inspired to write this next blog post by one of the most unlikely of sources, a friend posted a photo of a tap on Facebook, explaining his confusion when trying to understand the visual messages that the tap provided, so that he could operate it successfully. I understood the frustration of trying to interpret visual information and related it to being an obstacle that many people with Dyspraxia have to overcome. Visual perception and seeing the world in a different way is very rarely understood by society.
So. Today the House of Commons are discussing the Welfare Reform and Work Bill. This is the Bill that will cut the Employment Support Allowance payments received by disabled people in the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG) by thirty pounds every week to the same level as non-disabled people receiving Job Seekers Allowance. And the justification the Government for this move? Apparently, cutting disabled people's benefits will 'incentivise' them to go out and get a job.
This year sees the twentieth anniversary of the seminal Disability Discrimination Act (1995), reflecting the progress society has made in understanding the lives of disabled people and safeguarding their rights.
"[£200,000] is what this person suffering from a hereditary defect costs the People's community during his lifetime. Fellow citizen, that is your money too."
A leading member of the self-advocacy movement has called on peers to investigate huge apparent cuts to in-work support for people with learning difficulties.