Disablism: a call to action

Society’s institutional negativity towards disabled people is reflected, says Andy Rickell in how its institutions treat or mistreat us. And action to combat it is required at the highest level

Being the Minister for Disabled People in a government committed to imposing welfare reforms that may negatively impact on many disabled people is hardly anyone’s dream job. So when there is an opportunity for the
Minister to ally herself with huge swathes of disabled people, and influence the rest of government on our behalf, we need to encourage her to grab it with both hands.

I have just been listening to the latest report, this time from the Care Quality Commission, on the appalling care given to older people in 100 hospitals across the country, brought to the public’s attention following unannounced inspections. People not being fed or given water appropriately, others left in their own excrement, and others denied basic wishes regarding their own care. This feels like déjà vu, all over again! It seems only a few months ago we had exactly the same findings. The hospital bosses wring their hands, nursing representatives are flummoxed about how such things can happen, everyone scratches their heads about how such lack of care can happen in a “caring” environment in a “caring” society. Everyone acknowledges that older people should be treated with respect and dignity, but are unable to consistently deliver it.

Here in Bristol there was the Winterbourne View residential home debacle – the astoundingly appalling treatment of people with learning difficulties in the one place that was supposed to be delivering the best care that should be on offer, only brought to light after the BBC televised it in May 2011. Recently the Equality and Human Rights Commission produced their report, “Hidden in Plain Sight”, about disability hate crime. And I never forget my own “favourite” incident of a disabled man attacked by a barman in a Cambridge pub for “exaggerating his impairment”.

Such incidents are not only not isolated, they are actually intimately connected. Once you realise that older people needing hospital care are all disabled people too, all these incidents illustrate the worst end of discriminatory treatment of disabled people.

The underlying problem here is “disablism”! Let’s name it! Winterbourne View and this hospital survey should become to disablism what Stephen Lawrence was to racism – a wake-up call that it exists, red in tooth and claw, and that it is institutional in all bodies who deal with disabled people, including the NHS, social care providers and the police. This is not about money, not about austerity – it’s about British citizens being appallingly treated
in and by British society, including the British state and voluntary organisations. It needs to be changed.

Here is an opportunity for the Minister to show her mettle – to take up the battle against institutional disablism in the name of all those disabled people who find themselves made vulnerable by a system and society that routinely excludes them and in some cases forces them into institutional settings. There are lots of us disabled people who would be allies with her in such a battle – able to offer our advice and time to win that battle – but we need someone to take the fight to the highest levels.