High-tech barbarism
Last Tuesday evening there was a 45-minute programme on Radio 4 (part of its File on 4 slot) exposing the abusive treatment of an autistic teenage girl at the St Andrew’s hospital in Northampton,...
Category: Disability
Transforming care? More like history repeating itself
Last night BBC’s File on 4 programme was dedicated to how well the government’s declared intention to get people with learning disabilities out of short-term mental health care and into the community where they...
Another lesson in diplomacy
As Muslims face the consequences of Britain’s one-time “top diplomat” insulting an ethnic minority (and, by extension, the women of a number of the countries where Britain could do with having friendly relations) and...
NHS deaths and “blame culture”
Last week a report was published by the Health and Social Care Advisory Service (HASCAS), commissioned by the NHS Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group, about the death of Nico Reed (right), a young man who...
Money versus culture in care
In the light of two recent inquests into the deaths of young men with learning disabilities, one in an NHS hospital (Oliver McGowan, right) and one in a Mencap-run care home (Danny Tozer), both...
The Lib Dems’ despicable bargain
I sometimes regret the fact that I still live in a fairly affluent part of outer London which has been, for most of the past generation, a Lib Dem stronghold, particularly when I see...
Who really loses out here?
This is a sign which, allegedly, appeared on a college hall of residence in Toronto, Canada. It points left to a non-accessible bathroom for men, and right for an accessible one with a hoist...
On DIY SOS and accessibility
The other day I watched a repeat of an episode of the BBC series DIY SOS: The Big Build. It’s where the BBC get some architects, designers and local builders and other workers and...
Review: The Silent Child
The Silent Child is a 20-minute film which won an Oscar at the recent Academy Awards (for the best Live Action Short Film) which focuses on a four-year-old deaf girl named Libby who comes...
‘Sloven Health’ fined £2m
Today, the Hampshire based NHS trust Southern Health was fined nearly £2,000,000 for health and safety breaches in regard to the preventable deaths of two patients: Connor Sparrowhawk, the “Laughing Boy” of the Justice...
Mental health campaigner Claire Greaves dies in Cygnet unit
I learned this morning that Claire Greaves, a mental health blogger and campaigner who has worked with Mind, Fixers and eating disorder charity Beat until she was moved to a secure unit in 2016,...
Bawa-Garba supporters must stop attacking parents
In a previous post I expressed the opinion that the erasure of Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba (right) from the medical register was a miscarriage of justice and that a medical practitioners’ tribunal should not be...
Review: Dispatches, “Inside the Priory”
This documentary on Channel 4 last night (19th Feb) exposed abusive practices, short staff, over-reliance on temporary staff (including the undercover reporter for this programme) and poor safety at a hospital unit, The Dene...
Review: Silent Witness, “One Day”
Silent Witness is a series based on the work of police pathologists: the “witness” refers to the body of a murder victim. It’s been running since 1996 and the stories are always in two...
Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba, racism and the appeal to authority
Last week the High Court ruled that a doctor whose mistakes contributed to the death of a young boy in 2011 should be erased from the medical register for life. Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba had...
One lesson from Richard Handley’s inquest
Shitstorm. | Who By Fire The inquest into the death of Richard Handley (right), who died of faecal impaction in Ipswich in November 2017, is ongoing and is being live-tweeted on the account @HandleyInquest,...
Abortion and Down’s syndrome: I’m with Kasich
In an article for the website Global Comment, the British feminist writer Phillipa Willitts this week opposed the new law in the US state of Ohio that bans abortion where a foetus has been...
Home-schooling: the Muslim and autistic perspectives
The Sunday Times reported today (gleefully as you might expect) that Alexandra Spelman, the head of Ofsted, the British schools inspectorate, had announced a plan for her inspectors to ask primary school-age girls who...
On ‘fixing’ disability
Molly Burke, a blind YouTube vlogger, posted a video of her speech last month at the London (Ontario) Music Hall as part of an evening on “Belonging” organised by the Walrus, a Canadian magazine...
Review: Unrest
Unrest is a film about ME, made by Jennifer Brea (right) and which tells the story of her life with the condition since it forced her to cut short her degree. It also tells...