Category: Disability

Picture of Beth, a young white girl with curly hair wearing a knitted white jumper and a pink skirt, kneeling in front of a rose bush

Social care costs money

Today the Mail on Sunday published two long articles ([1], [2]) by Ian Birrell, a former speechwriter to David Cameron who has a disabled daughter, on the scandal of autistic people and people with...

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,...

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...

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 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...

‘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...

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...

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,...