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Disabled campaigners have expressed anger at reports that former health and social care secretary Matt Hancock considered blocking disability funding to persuade an MP to vote in favour of Covid restrictions at the height of the pandemic. The allegations emerged as […]
The government is to abandon measures that ran “a coach and horses” through the right to social care during the pandemic, but similar restrictions imposed on disabled young people’s right to education are set to remain. The measures were all part […]
The government has been forced to make a series of promises aimed at improving the accessibility of the way it communicates with those shielding from coronavirus. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) made the concessions hours before it was […]
Disabled campaigners have given a guarded response to the government’s new health and social care white paper, with particular concerns about the continuing social care funding crisis and ministers’ failure to pledge proper co-production and engagement with service-users. Much of the […]
The government’s failure to prepare for disabled people needing to shield from a pandemic meant they had to develop a shielding scheme from scratch at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, the spending watchdog has found. In a new report, the […]
The high court is set to hear a disabled woman’s claim that the government breached equality and human rights laws by failing to provide her with accessible shielding information during the pandemic. Sarah Leadbetter, from Narborough, Leicestershire, who is blind and […]
User-led grassroots groups have raised serious concerns about the government’s new mental health white paper, particularly its failure to offer the full human rights set out in the UN disability convention. The white paper, published yesterday (Wednesday), aims to deliver “major […]
Disabled people who have been shielding at home say they are having to rely on peer support and their own judgement to protect themselves from the pandemic, after despairing at the lack of clear government guidance. Many of those who have […]
The government has ignored repeated calls from disabled people’s organisations and allies to scrap measures that limit the rights of disabled adults and children to social care and education support during the pandemic crisis. In the first parliamentary review of temporary […]
Two disabled peers have called on the health and social care secretary to scrap powers given to local authorities that allow them to suspend some of their social care duties during the coronavirus pandemic. Crossbench peers Baroness [Jane] Campbell and Baroness […]