Disability equality bulletin
We are currently gathering information for our bulletin focusing
on disability equality. The views of people using services are
central to the bulletin.
We need disabled people using social care services to complete a
survey about their experiences of disability equality:
How you can help
We know that some services may be carrying out work on equality
for disabled people that will be useful for this bulletin. Please
tell us about any initiatives you know about.
There will also be other opportunities for you to be involved
during the coming months, including stakeholder workshops for the
bulletin.
To find out more, or to give us your views, please email
Lucy Wilkinson at Lucy.Wilkinson@csci.gsi.gov.uk.
Disability equality
Many people using care services would be viewed as disabled
people under laws about treating disabled people equally,
including:
- people with learning difficulties
- people using mental health services
- deaf and hard of hearing people
- blind and partially sighted people
- people with physical impairments
- people with long term health conditions, such as diabetes,
epilepsy, HIV and dementia
There is no age limit on disability equality – the law applies
equally to older people who have acquired impairments in later life
as it does to younger adults.
Disabled people still face barriers in living the lives that
they want, on an equal basis with non-disabled
people, for example:
- inaccessible information
- negative attitudes towards disabled people
- inflexible policies
- inaccessible buildings or environments.
Social care services can help to remove these barriers or can
create additional barriers that make it harder for disabled people
to achieve equality.
Equality and diversity matters
The disability equality bulletin is the third in our
“Putting people first: Equality and diversity matters” series:
These bulletins are designed to support you in your work in
developing good practice around equality and diversity
Informed by what you have told us
One important source of information for the bulletins are
the Annual Quality Assurance Assessment (AQAA) forms. You are
asked to describe what you are doing and plan to do in the future
to “ensure that race, gender identity, disability, sexual
orientation, age and religion or belief are promoted and
incorporated” into what you do.
If you are interested in receiving a copy of the bulletin: