Latest News: Government to review Social Care. Also: review of Titanic's water-proofing announced.

Liz Sayce, RADAR Chief Executive, gives her thoughts on the Government's new Social Care plans.

The news that Gordon Brown has announced a wide-ranging consultation on the future of social care is certainly good news. In his speech, on the 12th May, the Prime Minister made strong points on the expected future situation: “we expect nearly two million more people to have care and support needs in 20 years time”. But is this the right viewpoint to be taking? The most pressing question is what is social care FOR. The answer, in RADAR’s view is not just to stay alive, to get up, to eat, to bathe, to go to bed again. It should rather provide the support we need to go to a good film, learn new skills, visit friends, go to work – or anything else we want to do. With that support disabled people can do anything – and be full citizens. Without it we are mere beneficiaries – part-citizens.

So Government shouldn’t just be looking at the costs of providing ‘care’ (we prefer the term support) – but at the opportunity of supporting more people to contribute economically and socially. This is sound investment. What’s more, when disabled people are supported to contribute it benefits everyone. Disabled people start doing more grandparenting or going to work or getting involved in local community activity. Family members’ lives get better (and can we really base our economy on the assumption that more and more millions of people, usually women, give up work to support disabled and older relatives? Especially when Government says we need MORE people in the labour market). Finally Britain as a whole benefits – as disabled people become net contributors to our society.

RADAR urges ministers to face the fact that the system is already in crisis because it isn’t yet designed to support contribution. We need ‘social care’ reform based on a clear purpose. At present we have one part of Government that does apply independent living principles (as in the 2008 Independent Living Strategy), another that (separately) looks at the ‘costs of care’ and another that looks at the strategy for carers. We say, bring them all together under a common philosophy and invest in all our futures.

More specifically, we need rights to independent living support, rights to move home without the risk of losing vital daily support packages, and ratification of the ‘UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ to give the dignity and independence that every person deserves. So the announced consultation is a step in the right direction, Health Secretary Alan Johnson claims it will be a “proper debate”, but it needs to be more than a discussion, it needs to produce actions right across Government, rooted in a clear philosophy. Gordon Brown has hopes for a system that is “personal to individual needs, giving real control to those needing care and their carers; and that offers us all protection against the costs of care in old age or as a result of a disability”. Let’s hope that this can be implemented so that money is spent on what matters – enabling disabled and older people to be full citizens.

Sympathy has nothing to do with it - Murder is Murder.

Let's suppose I find a man of 60. I attempt to strangle him with a dressing gown cord; when that doesn't work I try to smother him with a pillow, but he fights me off. Finally, I attempt to drown him in the bath, and, before the police finally arrive and arrest me, beat him around the head with a walking stick. The assumption would be that I am a vicious and dangerous criminal, and should face a lengthy custodial sentence for my brutal crime.

Now imagine I am that man's wife, and he has arthritis; what happens then? I get 100 hours of community service and walk free from court, while the judge and commentators extend their sympathy to me, as we discovered today. The judge said "...I'm satisfied that these incidents were completely out of character and that they were a cry of help." Another commentator was quoted as saying "I feel a great deal of sympathy for this lady". (See full story here - "Freedom for woman who kept trying to kill her disabled husband").

When incidents like this happen, the judiciary and the media are in grave danger of letting their sympathy for the perpetrator's situation mutate into sympathy for their actions. Murder is never an acceptable solution to the undoubted and shocking problems which carers can face, yet in this rush to sympathise with the perpetrator's predicament the disabled victim is forgotten, or worse, effectively blamed for ruining the perpetrator's life. The murderer, or attempted murderer, becomes the victim.

In April 2000, James Lawson murdered his 22 year old daughter, who had manic depression. He received a two year suspended sentence for manslaughter and walked free from court.*

Frank Hallsworth hacked his 69 year old wife Daisy and 33 year old daughter Fiona, a wheelchair user with mental health problems, to death with an axe while they slept. He spent five months in prison on remand, before being freed in October 2002.*

Wendolyn Markcrow killed her 36 year old son Patrick, who had autism and down's syndrome, by drugging and suffocating him. She received a two year suspended sentence for manslaughter in March 2005 and walked free from court.*

Andrew Wragg killed his 10 year old son Jacob, who had Hunter syndrome. He received a two year suspended sentence and walked free from court in December 2005.*

"Hasn't the perpetrator suffered enough?" we were asked. The inadequacies of social care were pointed out, as if they justified murder, and anecdotes told by journalists of the burden of caring for disabled people - who are we to pass judgement if the carer snaps? Unless we have cared for a disabled person we cannot judge them or condemn them for their actions.

Actually, we can. Murder is murder, regardless of the victim's disability. Anything less than that diminishes the humanity of disabled people and is not acceptable. Unless, of course, you don't believe disabled people are truly human and worthy of full legal rights...?

*These examples are taken from the RADAR booklet "Assisted Dying: the facts". Click here to download a copy.

Award - Yay!

Many thanks to Chris at My Peggy Peg for nominating RADAR's blog for this award.

I'd like to nominate (in no particular order): Growing up with a Disability, Chewing the Fat, Terrible Palsy, The Perorations of Lady Bracknell, Wheelchair Dancer, The Beauty Offensive, Diary of a Goldfish. Chris already has an award, and these are the others which I read and enjoy most often - thanks to all the authors for great blogging.

Blogging Against Disablism Day Post - The Little Things

I work for a disability rights group. Writing about disability discrimination is basically what I do for a living. So why, when I sat down at my computer to write something for BADD, cracking my knuckles in a maestro-like manner, was I so bereft of ideas?

As I sat there, contemplating signing up for Incapacity Benefit, it sruck me that what I do for RADAR involves a lot of big things: Independent Living, Poverty, Leadership - these are the main things on which RADAR is currently campaigning, and they are all very important. "Independent Living" means choices for disabled people, not being pushed around and categorised by bureaucrats; reducing poverty means decent education and real careers instead of a choice between dead-end jobs and benefits; "Leadership" means changing attitudes to ensure that disabled people can exercise their talents in the council chamber, the governing body and the board of directors, and are not prevented from aiming high through prejudice.

But what REALLY p****s me off about disability discrimination is not the big things, but the little things. My friend Mattie has duchenne muscular dystrophy. For my recent 25th birthday Mattie, 4 other (non-disabled; ordinarily I wouldn't include that information, but it has a bearing on the rest of the tale) friends and I went bowling. I booked the lane in advance. The company's central booking line took my money readily enough. I told the employee that as one of our party was a wheelchair user, we would need a bowling machine. I was told I couldn't reserve one.

So, I asked, the company would take my money, but would not ensure that everyone who was booked in could bowl? I know the bowling alley in question; they don't have many bowling machines and they disappear rapidly. What, I asked, was I supposed to do if we turned up and couldn't bowl? "No refunds - but 5 of you will be able to bowl". It had genuinely not occurred to him that the if the wheelchair-using member of our group couldn't bowl, the rest of us were not going to bowl either.

To enquire about bowling machines or any other accessible features, we had to speak to the manager of the individual bowling alley. Could he put me through to him? "No - I can't do that." I knew, from earlier experiences, that he could, if he wanted to, simply by pushing a button, and I pointed this out. "Against the rules" he said. Could he give me the phone number? "No." So, in order to enquire about accessibility, company policy states that you have to ask individual managers, whom company policy forbids you from contacting.

Having pleaded with the call centre employee, in the name of common humanity and for the best part of half an hour, to ditch the rule book and use his brain, I was then told that I couldn't cancel and take my money elsewhere, because the transaction was in the system. I hung up before I said something regrettable, and made the half hour drive to the bowling alley itself, where I spoke to the manager in person. He expressed his opinions of the call centre staff in words which I shall not reproduce, apologised, and guaranteed that a bowling machine would be reserved. "The problem", he explained, "is that they just don't think".

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the whole point of this rambling post: they just don't think. The call centre employee and the person who made the rules probably didn't have a disablist bone in their body, but they just didn't think.

It is that inability to think, reproduced in countless policies, strategies and inaccessible designs from the highest levels of government to the lowest managers and staff, which is responsible for so much of the discrimination faced by disabled people today. That is why we are focused on Poverty, Independent Living and Leadership - because only when disabled people have equal spending power, when disabled people can make choices and demands, and when disabled people are the ones thinking through and implementing the plans, can that discrimination can be consigned to history.

And in case you're wondering, Mattie and I had a great day after all.