How Has The Pandemic Affected Disabled UK Workers

With everyone being told to stay at home unless absolutely necessary due to the Coronavirus pandemic, many businesses and employees are losing funding and income. This can be due to a loss of sales as if they are not in work they can't earn the money that they need to survive. It could also be because their employer or the person who pays their wages is off sick and this means that that employees will have less money to spend on every day items.

If someone is disabled and has to rely on benefits and support in order to work, they will not receive the funding they need to either pay for travel or pay someone they need to support them. This can be because everyone who works at the organisation that pays for their support is off sick or has been told not to come in to work. This means that they will have to find some other way of paying for their support and can lead to them being overdrawn or going in to debt.

As people who are disabled rely on support in order to work and adaptations being made to equipment or facilities to make it easier for them to use, if this support is taken away it can take away that person's only source of income and lead to them feeling isolated as they won't be able to take part in many of the activities that they usually do.

At the moment, due to the pandemic, Access To Work are only treating key workers as a priority and everyone else is put on a waiting list until there is an available advisor to speak to them.

Access To Work is a benefit that disabled people can claim if they have a physical or mental health condition that makes it hard for them to do their job. You can:

talk to your employer about changes they must make in your workplace

get extra help from Access to Work, including mental health support

People who claim the benefit need to have a paid job or be in the process of starting one.

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.

To be eligible for Access To Work you have to meet a certain earning threshold which you will have to keep up with and improve on to illustrate that you have a viable business and there is plenty of demand for your services.

Since only key workers are treated as a priority at the moment, if a disabled person's award expires and they lose their funding, it will mean that two people lose their jobs, the disabled person and their support worker.

If disabled people are put on waiting lists because of the lack of Access To Work advisors when they are starting a new job, if the support isn't put in place in time they may lose the opportunity of a largely lucrative job and this could affect their life chances in the future. More advisors could be put in place to help sort this situation out and ensure it works for all future claimants.

Since many people aren't able to work during the pandemic for health reasons, I ask you, is it worth the damage it could do to the economy if disabled people who run their own businesses are unable to work?