• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Advice/Information
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / Archives for Mencap

Mencap

Ministers break national strategy pledge by asking non-user-led charities to join taskforce

By John Pring on 3rd March 2022 Category: Politics

Ministers break national strategy pledge by asking non-user-led charities to join taskforce
Listen

Ministers have broken a pledge made in their National Disability Strategy to set up a taskforce of disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) that would help them access more government contracts, by allowing non-user-led charities to join the group. The strategy pledged last […]

Government ‘treats disabled people with contempt’ by handing £2.4 million to charities

By John Pring on 1st April 2021 Category: Activism and Campaigning

Government ‘treats disabled people with contempt’ by handing £2.4 million to charities
Listen

The government has been accused of showing “contempt” and “indifference” towards disabled people, after announcing large grants to 13 disability charities but failing to offer a penny to organisations run and controlled by disabled people. The Department of Health and Social […]

Government uses loophole to block inquiry on civil servant sex abuse evidence

By John Pring on 29th October 2020 Category: Crime

Government uses loophole to block inquiry on civil servant sex abuse evidence
Listen

The government has used a freedom of information loophole to hide evidence that would show if a former senior civil servant – later arrested over two unconnected rape allegations – helped block laws that would have protected disabled people from sex […]

Activist’s book takes aim at charities ‘who facilitated war on disabled people’

By John Pring on 11th June 2020 Category: Activism and Campaigning

Activist’s book takes aim at charities ‘who facilitated war on disabled people’
Listen

A new book by a leading disabled activist has accused disability charities of being more interested in their own survival than in defending disabled people from a decade of cuts and oppression. In The War on Disabled People*, published next week, […]

Charities ignore Justice for Jodey evidence

By John Pring on 1st August 2019 Category: Activism and Campaigning

Charities ignore Justice for Jodey evidence
Listen

A dozen disability charities have refused to back demands for an inquiry into links between the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the deaths of benefit claimants, despite being reminded of the years of evidence behind those calls. The 12 […]

Local Mencap charity boss shared racist posts on social media

By John Pring on 25th January 2018 Category: Human Rights

Local Mencap charity boss shared racist posts on social media
Listen

The boss of a local Mencap charity has admitted repeatedly sharing racist messages from far-right organisations including the BNP and Britain First on social media. Patricia Chadwick has been sharing far-right messages on her Facebook page since at least 2015, alongside […]

PA employers are facing probes into ‘sleep-in’ minimum wage back-pay

By John Pring on 27th July 2017 Category: Independent Living

PA employers are facing probes into ‘sleep-in’ minimum wage back-pay
Listen

Disabled people who employ personal assistants (PAs) are being investigated by the government for failing to pay their PAs the minimum wage during overnight “sleep-in” shifts. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has admitted to Disability News Service (DNS) that individual PA […]

Mencap care staff ‘called resident “poison dwarf” and reused feeding syringes’

By John Pring on 29th June 2017 Category: Independent Living

Mencap care staff ‘called resident “poison dwarf” and reused feeding syringes’
Listen

The disability charity Mencap is facing allegations that staff at one of its care homes used an offensive nickname for a disabled resident, and repeatedly reused feeding syringes that should have been thrown away after just one day. A whistleblower, A*, […]

Big disability charities ‘are selling out disabled people’ by seeking DWP contracts

By John Pring on 8th December 2016 Category: Activism and Campaigning

Big disability charities ‘are selling out disabled people’ by seeking DWP contracts
Listen

The country’s largest disability charities have been accused of “selling out” disabled people, as they look set to play a significant role in providing back-to-work services under the government’s new Work and Health Programme. Disability News Service (DNS) has contacted seven […]

Primary Sidebar

On the left of the image are multiple heads of different colours - white, aqua, red, light brown, and dark green - all grouped together, then the words ‘Join our campaign for a decent life for Disabled people. Campaign for Disability Justice’
Image of front cover of The Department, showing a crinkled memo with the words 'Restricted - Policy. The Department. How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence. John Pring.' Next to the image is a red box with the following words in white: 'A very interesting book... a very important contribution to this whole debate' - Sir Stephen Timms, minister for social security and disability. plutobooks.com and the Pluto Press logo.

Access

Latest Stories

Conservatives’ £1 billion Motability VAT plan will decimate scheme and raise almost nothing, figures show

Leaked DWP ‘corner-cutting’ plans reveal changes to checks on assessments that will cause ‘even more risk’

Disabled peer uses AI tech to recreate the voice she used to have, as she delivers speech to House of Lords

Information Commission orders DWP to release secret report that examined quality of PIP phone assessments

New campaign aims to make media hostility towards disabled people unprofitable… now it needs your help

Review dismisses claims of widespread over-diagnosis across mental health, ADHD and autism

The Times ignores efforts to draw its attention to years of DWP deaths as it launches its own ‘welfare inquiry’

Progress at last on disability hate crime, but prosecution figures still fail to reflect daily experience of hostility

Whately appears to agree social security spending is not spiralling after all… as Tories plan £36 billion-a-year cuts

Shadow minister says parents don’t ‘game’ SEND system… but Kemi says disabled adults do ‘game’ the benefits system

Readspeaker
Image of front cover of The Department, showing a crinkled memo with the words 'Restricted - Policy. The Department. How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence. John Pring.' Next to the image is a red box with the following words in white: 'A very interesting book... a very important contribution to this whole debate' - Sir Stephen Timms, minister for social security and disability. plutobooks.com and the Pluto Press logo.

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Bluesky
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Threads
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2026 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web