Disabled People Choose Whether Or Not To Take Action To Get Support They Need

There are approximately eight point four million disabled people of working age in the United Kingdom. Out of this four point four million (53.6 %) are currently in employment. This compares with 81.7% of people who are not disabled being in work. The unemployment rate for disabled people is twice that of those who are non disabled as 8.4% of disabled people are unemployed compared with 4.6% of people who aren't disabled.

There are an estimated four hundred thousand disabled people who are registered as unemployed in the UK. There could be many reasons for this, some of which may be because of their disability or health condition. They may have a long term health condition that makes it difficult for them to find mainstream employment as there are many buildings or office facilities in the country that can be difficult for disabled people to use or gain access to. This can be a real problem now at a time when we are just beginning to reopen the economy after long periods of lock down which had to be put in place due to the Covid 19 pandemic.

During the past year, everyone was told to stay in their homes, to avoid as much social contact as possible and reduce the risk of spreading the Covid 19 infection round the country. Now that more people have been double jabbed with a recommended Covid vaccine to avoid spreading the virus, it is considered safer to reopen the economy and allow people more freedom to move about in public. People are still being advised to get double jabbed and have as little social contact with others, but now that more people have been vaccinated, it is considered safer to reopen the economy fully.

From 1945 onwards, the UK landscape was becoming increasingly urbanised with the number of disabled people increasing rapidly. There were many mobility and accessibility issues which were highlighted in society as there were barely any buildings which were designed with disabled people in mind. This meant that they were unable to take part in and contribute to the economy.

in 1956, a young newly qualified architect called Selwyn Goldsmith (1932-2011) became disabled through polio, and he devoted the rest of his life to overcoming what he called 'architectural disability'. He challenged the 'institutional discrimination' of buildings which placed barriers in the way of disabled people who wanted to use them. And not just people using wheelchairs, but also blind people, deaf people, the walking disabled - indeed anyone who had difficulty negotiating buildings.

Nowadays there are some in work benefits which endeavour to help disabled people find employment and contribute to society in a meaningful way. This includes Access To Work which helps provide support for disabled people who may have a physical or mental health condition.

To make the workplace more accessible and easier to use, a disabled person must first talk to their employer about changes that could be made in the workplace to make it more accessible. Employers must make certain changes, which are known as reasonable adjustments to make it easier for people with disabilities to use.

If the help you need at work is not covered by your employer, you may be able to get help from Access To Work. This is for people who have a paid job, but just need a little more help using facilities, gaining access to different locations or doing other work related activities.

An Access to Work grant can pay for:

Special equipment, adaptations or support worker services to help you do things like answer the phone or go to meetings

Help getting to and from work

You might not get a grant if you already get certain benefits.

The money does not have to be paid back and will not affect your other benefits.

Once you have been approved for a grant, you can then start arranging the support you may need. This may include having a Personal Assistant who helps with all work related tasks including helping you travel to meetings, taking notes etc. Every time you use your support, you will need to get an invoice so you can then fill in a claims form and send them off to Access To Work for help with funding to pay for the support.

Once Access To Work receive the claim through the post, they are then scanned in to the system which enables an advisor to view it and process the claim. When claims are posted, they are first received at a Mail Handling Site and need to be transferred over to the main office which can take time. It can sometimes be a few weeks before claims are fully processed and claims can be paid. Unfortunately at this time, due to the Covid 19 pandemic, it has sometimes taken a lot longer as advisors will not have been available all the time and may have been experiencing symptoms so have been self isolating to enable them to recover.

Some disabled people have posted claims off in April and only received the payments in July. This has meant they may have fallen behind on their bills during this time and may even have had threats that they will lose their support as payments have been extremely late and the person providing the support needs the money that they are paid as they have bills of their own.

Some disabled people are assessing the situation that they are in and will be choosing whether or not to take part in some form of demonstration to ensure they are heard and they can get the funding they need to keep the support they require. As payments have sometimes been several months late, it will mean that many of them will have lost support and not been able to take on jobs as they don't have the support they require.

A better system needs to be developed so claims can be processed quicker to ensure that disabled people don't lose their support.