The All Inclusive PA School, backed by Hampshire County Council, will open its doors in September for its first intake of PAs; the 10-module course has been developed not only for new PAs but existing PAs who have been following the vocation for some time where there has never before been an opportunity to gain [...]
Tens of thousands of disabled people will be at risk of having their homes repossessed because the government is cutting spending on a mortgage interest support scheme, according to a national housing body.
The chancellor, George Osborne, announced in his emergency budget in June that the government would cut funding available through the Support for Mortgage [...]
Channel 4 has pledged that at least half of the presenters it uses for its blanket coverage of the London 2012 Paralympics will be disabled people.
It made the promise as it announced initial details of a £500,000 programme to find disabled sports reporters and presenters and develop their skills in readiness for its blanket coverage [...]
Alcoholics, people with hayfever and those with tendencies to steal or set fires will not be able to claim protection from disability discrimination under the Equality Act, according to new government guidance.
The draft guidance, published this week by the Office for Disability Issues, says that people with disfigurements caused by tattoos or non-medical body piercings [...]
A unique access guide that will empower disabled people to access healthcare with confidence is set to launch this month.
DisabledGo, the UK’s foremost provider of disabled access information, has produced a unique new online guide to Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust (GOSH). The aim of the guide is to provide detailed, accurate [...]
Channel 4 says it wants to make its wall-to-wall coverage of the London 2012 Paralympics the “biggest event” in its history.
The broadcaster is promising a multi-million pound marketing campaign in the lead-up to London 2012 – again the biggest in its history – and promised that coverage during the games would be “pretty much first [...]
Relatives of people with learning difficulties who were allegedly abused at an NHS day centre are to take legal action against the trust that ran the centre.
They also want South Yorkshire police to reopen its investigation into the allegations of abuse by four members of staff at the Solar Centre in Doncaster.
Police investigated the allegations [...]
The government is set to use private companies to trawl through disabled people’s credit histories as part of its latest campaign to cut benefit fraud.
The prime minister, David Cameron, announced this week on a visit to Manchester that the government would unveil an “uncompromising” crackdown on benefit fraud this autumn, which could include tougher penalties [...]
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has used controversial laws designed for confiscating property from terrorists and drug dealers to freeze the assets of two disabled businessmen under investigation for benefit fraud.
The two disabled men – who cannot be named for legal reasons – say the investigation by the DWP has destroyed their lives [...]
A unique project – backed by international trade unions – aims to promote the employment rights of disabled people in Tanzania.
The pilot programme will find jobs for 20 disabled people, while training existing trade union members in Tanzania to be “disability champions” in the workplace.
It will also deliver training on the UN Convention on the [...]
Planned cuts to hundreds of jobs across London Underground could make it harder for disabled passengers to secure the assistance they need to use the service, say campaigners.
Three organisations that campaign on disability issues – London Visual Impairment Forum (LVIF), Transport for All and Inclusion London – have written to the mayor, Boris Johnson, saying [...]
Disability organisations have given a cool reception to a government document that pledges sweeping changes to the benefits system.
Although the plans outlined in 21st Century Welfare are lacking in detail and include several options for reform, they focus on a new “Universal Credit”, which would replace a range of benefits and tax credits with a [...]
Home secretary Theresa May has warned the chancellor that the government’s planned spending cuts could cause it to breach its legal duty to promote disability equality.
May wrote to George Osborne on 9 June in her role as women and equalities minister, two weeks before his emergency budget, warning him of “real risks that women, ethnic [...]
Police are investigating the deaths of a disabled woman and her mother, whose bodies appear to have been lying undiscovered in their home for several weeks.
The bodies of Sam Wolf, 29, and her mother Stephania, 67, were finally discovered this week at their home in Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire.
Hertfordshire social services claim that both Sam – who [...]
A new social enterprise is aiming to create 50 jobs for people with autism in Scotland, by providing skilled software-testing services to businesses.
Specialisterne Scotland, which was launched by Scottish government minister John Swinney this week, is modelled on a Danish company which was set up to offer mainstream jobs at market rates of pay to [...]
The health trust at the centre of allegations of ill-treatment and neglect of people with learning difficulties at a day centre has taken nearly two years to pass its report into the allegations to the healthcare watchdog.
The report describes how staff at the Solar Centre in Doncaster allegedly hit service-users and used “inappropriate force”, as [...]
The health trust at the centre of allegations of abuse of disabled service-users was given an “excellent” rating by the healthcare regulator three years running, even though the watchdog knew about the allegations.
An investigation by Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (RDaSH), which ended in September 2008, uncovered allegations of abuse [...]
The government’s benefits advice body is to investigate changes to the controversial work capability test which campaigners believe will make it even harder for disabled people to claim access to the support they need.
The social security advisory committee (SSAC) decided yesterday (4 August) to hold a public consultation as part of a formal “referral” of [...]
New research by a leading disabled activist has uncovered reports of more than 20 violent deaths of disabled people – many of them likely to be disability hate crimes – over just three months.
The report, by hate crime campaigner Anne Novis for the United Kingdom Disabled People’s Council (UKDPC), found reports of 141 offences that [...]
Disabled activists are calling on the government to push for the release of a thalidomide survivor who has served 18 years in prison in the Philippines for drug smuggling.
Billy Burton was handed a life sentence after he was caught trying to smuggle more than five kilogrammes of cannabis out of the country in 1992.
But the [...]