Monthly Archives: August 2013

The Paralympics And A Legacy For The Disabled

The Paralympics And A Legacy For The Disabled

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A year after the ‘breakthrough moment’ of the Paralympics, attitudes towards the disabled have been slow to change, according to disability groups.Cuts to disability benefits and the government’s ill-judged ‘shirkers vs skivers’ campaign have thrown something of a spanner into the works of public perception of the disabled, with 81% of those surveyed saying they felt attitudes hadn’t improved. 22% felt attitudes had actually got worse.According to a survey by disability charity Scope, negative perceptions have been driven by the government and media:

84% of those that say attitudes have got worse saying the ‘benefit scrounger’ rhetoric from politicians and the media has had a negative effect on views of disabled people. The poll by Opinium found that nearly one in five (17%) of disabled people report they have either experienced hostile or threatening behaviour or even been attacked.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) say they ‘very consciously do not use the language of ‘scroungers’ and ‘workshy’, but when even the likes of Iain Duncan Smith aren’t above misusing statistics to imply that claimants are fraudulent, it’s hardly reassuring. A further division between those with visible disabilities compared to those without has been highlighted by campaigners — leading to a climate of disbelief and hostility.

Despite the huge public enthusiasm for the Paralympics, its success has proved a bit of a double-edged sword with athletes being held up as aspirational examples for disabled people. But as Paralympic dressage rider Sophie Christiansen says:

Rooms worth remembering are set up at hospital

FOUR pop-up 1950s living rooms worth £4,500 have been bought by Burton’s Queen’s Hospital to help elderly patients with dementia.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Derby Telegraph

The reminiscence pods, known as RemPods, contain decade-appropriate décor, furnishings, period newspapers and magazines, a television playing recordings of old black and white shows and an old-style radio.

  1. The RemPods can act as a talking point to help people with dementia.

Patients and visitors to the hospital were first shown a RemPod during national Dementia Awareness Week in May this year, when one was set up in the main corridor.

This demonstration led to Burton’s hospitals’ League of Friends’ decision to buy RemPods for the trust’s three hospital sites – Queen’s, Samuel Johnson Community Hospital, in Lichfield, and the Sir Robert Peel Community Hospital, in Tamworth – and they are due to be delivered next week.

The remaining three will go to the two other hospitals.

Written off by Atos – I might as well die

 The desperate letters from benefit cuts victims

There has been an astonishing response from readers, a deluge of personal horror stories about the Work ­Capability Assessment

 
A protester demonstrates against IT company Atos’s involvement in tests for incapacity benefits

A week ago, in this column, I told the story of Dr Greg Wood, the whistle-blower who resigned from Atos – the controversial French company paid £110 million a year to test British benefits claimants.

Dr Wood left the company after his bosses asked him to declare a person he felt was severely ill “fit for work”.

There has been an astonishing response from readers, a deluge of personal horror stories about the Work ­Capability Assessment.