Thousands of people with mental health conditions every year are being restrained using a life-threatening technique, according to a new report. The mental health charity Mind has discovered that more than 3,400 mental health patients across 27 NHS trusts were pinned […]
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Council’s cuts ‘put trio at risk of debt, eviction and harassment’
Disabled people are at risk of eviction, harassment and falling into debt because of a council’s decision to cut their support, a court has heard. Three people with learning difficulties this week won permission from the high court for a full […]
T4 film shows horrors of Nazi Germany
A disabled campaigner is hoping that his film project exposing how tens of thousands of disabled people were murdered in Nazi Germany will help to educate today’s younger generation about disability hate crime. Berge Kanikanian first began working on the project […]
Are people really living independently in group homes?
I have been working with a children’s charity to support the closing down of institutions in central and eastern Europe. The young people in the institutions I visited did not have any privacy or any choices about how they lived. In […]
‘Serious concerns’ over Atos PIP contract promises
The controversial IT giant Atos Healthcare has broken a series of firm pledges that helped it win a £184 million disability assessment contract, Disability News Service can reveal. It comes as the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) rolls out the […]
Funding crisis means UKDPC will go volunteer-only within days
One of the UK’s two major disabled people’s representative organisations will lose its last paid member of staff next month, after it accepted defeat in a lengthy struggle to secure sustainable funding. UK Disabled People’s Council (UKDPC) will continue to operate […]
Labour poverty taskforce set to target ‘fitness for work’ test
The prospect of Labour calling for the hated “fitness for work” test to be scrapped and for a more “humane” way of assessing entitlement to benefits has moved a step closer, with its appointment of a new disability poverty taskforce. Six […]
Atos doctor ‘sickened’ by claimant requests
A senior doctor working for Atos Healthcare told colleagues he was “sickened” that disabled benefit claimants can now demand to have their “fitness for work” assessments recorded, according to a leaked email seen by Disability News Service (DNS). Geoff Douglas, who […]
Minister’s u-turn saves DPTAC from the quango bonfire
The government has performed a notable u-turn after finally deciding – after nearly three years of discussions and consultations – that it will not abolish the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC) after all. The coalition has been heavily lobbied since […]
Poverty figures offer no protection from the cliff edge
New government figures show that the number of disabled people in “relative” poverty fell by 100, 000 in the coalition’s second year, although only because the real value of benefits fell by less than real wages. The Department for Work and […]