EQUALITY OF HEALTHCARE DOES NOT EXIST FOR PEOPLE WITH AUTISTIC SPECTRUM DISORDERS IN SCOTLAND

Received from Autism Rights

Today’s front page story in the `Sunday Post` covers the plight of Christine and Andrew MacVicar, a  mother and son from Scotland who have fled to Spain to escape the enforced medication of Andrew under a CTO. The headline is `Mum on the run`.

Sunday Post article media release, September 2012

Autism and Mental Health – August 2012

 

 

Autistic People should not be included in Mental Health Act

CarerWatch have been asked to raise awareness of this -

MHA leaflet, November 2011

MONDAY, 10TH OCTOBER 2011
On World Mental Health Day, and at the start of Scottish Mental Health Week, Autism Rights is calling for revision and amendment of the Mental Health Act to take people with Learning Disabilities and Autistic Spectrum Disorders out of this Act. At the moment, people with Learning Disabilities are specifically included in this Act under the the definition of `mental disorder`. People with autism are also included in this definition.

Both the Millan Committee of 2001, which was set up by the first Scottish Executive to review the then Mental Health Act, and the 2009 McManus Review  of the current Mental Health Act, recommended that people with Learning  Disabilities be taken out of the Mental Health Act. In spite of the agreement  by the Scottish Parliament’s Equal Opportunities Committee that this measure was long overdue, nothing has happened. There is currently a Scottish Government consultation on a Review of Mental Health Strategy which makes no  mention of this recommendation.

Questions to Maria Miller and Paul Burstow – CarersUK AGM

On the 3rd November the 2011 Carers Summit took place in London. Below is full coverage of the conference starting with Ministers answering Carers questions.

watch video here

Carers attending left the ministers in no doubt as to their anger, concerns and fears. 

Issues raised covered -

Carers Benefits, Care services, Employment Support Allowance, Atos, Work Assessments, DLA, Personal Independence Payment plus others.  

Hardest Hit Rally – Edinburgh

CarerWatch member Pat Onions attended the Hardest Hit rally in Edinburgh. Here is her thoughts.

The rally, in the beautiful Princes Street gardens of Edinburgh, was the largest ever staged in Scotland with over 1,000 of us. Many disabled people and their carers couldn’t make it to the capital but I know you were with us in spirit.

The organisers held it in the band stand which has a stage and tiered seating AND chairs! AND vital for me…. loos!

David and I found access somewhat difficult. It seemed a choice of 39 steps or parachuting from a cliff top. David, who had insisted he would walk with his trundler, chose the cliff. Slowly and painfully we made it. Yes of course there was disabled access but buggered if we could find it!

The march itself had to be cancelled. The authorities could not guarantee  access for everyone along the proposed route. This had a lot to do with the fact that the controversial trams are now on the build again.

No matter I don’t think we could have negotiated the North face of the Eiger again!

Pam Duncan, of Inclusion Scotland, was the chair and damned good she was too. I don’t know if a chair is supposed to say quite as much but she wasn’t for stopping! I loved her.

Lord (Colin) Low was our first speaker and he, like the other speakers, didn’t really need the microphone. Such was their knowledge & passion in their words.

The young lad Jay Wakefield, from student disabilities, had a little trouble with the high winds & his kilt. This was a bonus especially for the ladies!

All the speakers talked on a different aspect of the proposed welfare reforms but the same message from them all. We ARE the Hardest Hit and we will NOT take it. I almost felt sorry for the Labour MSP who was heckled. I am sure he didn’t start the welfare reform ball in motion personally but our heckler felt he did. Brave MSP to come along.  Strangely noticeable by there absence was the Tories & LibDems. Now that would have been brave or very stupid.

If the British Gov thought disabled people would be an easy target they couldn’t have been more wrong. We have all had to develop our own survival skills which has made us stronger. Camerout & his millionaire buddies seem to have overlooked this.

It was an excellent rally in the late autumn sunshine. Frighteningly there was nothing said I didn’t already know but we left with as much determination to carry on campaigning as we’d had on arrival.

Those of us there came from all walks of life with all sorts of disability. Carers, children & families. They all came. Came with their own struggles to share.

I was proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with my adopted compatriots. If Mr Salmond ever wants a vote on ‘Devolution from Westminster;….he will have mine.

A sort of PS.

David proudly wore his service medals. While walking back along Princes Street a young man, in his 30′s, came up to us. Is that a medal from the Royal Navy he asked. My Dad served with them and it looks the same. David told him what the medals were for. The young man wanted to know how long David had served. A brief history of how long & why he was medically discharged followed.

The young man, who called David Sir, asked if he could shake his hand? It was very moving and done out of pure respect for David and what he had stood for. This young man told us he was waiting for an operation for cataracts which he was unlikely to get due to the NHS cuts. He said it was nothing compared with what David had lived through and was still living through. A few more words as to why David was walking through the middle of the Capital with his medals. This young man made me even more determined to fight on. It was a extraordinary brief encounter from a total stranger.

A lesson there for all those who think they can dismiss any disabled person as unimportant.

David was very quiet on the way home.

What EVERY MP should know about welfare reform

Sue Marsh of Diary of a Benefit Scrounger  has sent this over asking everyone to help raise awareness.

Since Employment and Support Allowance was introduced back in 2008, campaigners and those affected have warned that it is flawed. Not because people must face assessment to qualify for support but because the wrong people are declared “fit for work”.

People clearly too disabled to work get harassed and pressurised into work programmes they clearly cannot comply with, while the number of “cheats” or “scroungers” caught, remains at exactly the same level it always did.

Throughout the last year, we have warned of a tipping point.  With over 110,000 decisions already found to be wrong and overturned, 11,000 people a week are being put through flawed assessments. It is only a matter of time before this becomes the toxic story of recent years. MP mailbags are already bursting with letters about this.

Read in full here

What EVERY MP should know about welfare reform

Can you help raise awareness by sharing this post with your contacts, on Facebook and twitter too.

Contact your MP with your concerns.

Please leave a comment on Sues’ blog or contact her direct with links to any reports in your own local newspapers. suey2yblog@hotmail.co.uk

For those that dont know, Sue is one of the founder members of  The Broken Of Britain team

 

Major shake-up of adult social care in Lincolnshire is approved

 

HUNDREDS of elderly and vulnerable people will have their home help removed as part of the biggest shake-up of adult social care in Lincolnshire for more than 60 years.

County councillors agreed yesterday to remove care allowances to people who need help with simple household tasks like cooking or cleaning.

Major shake-up of adult social care in Lincolnshire is approved | This is Lincolnshire

‘Dear Mr Miliband’ – why you need LISTEN

UPDATE  – reply received from Margaret Curran Labour MP

and the following

margaret.curran.mp@parliament.uk,coopery@parliament.uk, eaglea@parliament.uk  denhamj@parliament.uk   jowellt@parliament.uk
caroline.flint.mp@parliament.uk  lewisi@parliament.uk hilary.benn.mp@parliament.uk    jimmurphymp@parliament.uk creaghm@parliament.uk  andy.burnham.mp@parliament.uk
meghilliermp@parliament.uk   healeyj@parliament.uk  woodwardsh@parliament.uk ann.mckechin.mp@parliament.uk
eaglem@parliament.uk  hainp@parliament.uk  timmss@parliament.uk 
stephen@stephentimms.org.uk   buckk@parliament.uk byrnel@parliament.uk

Dear Mr Ed Millband (and to each and everyone copied in above)

  The 10 million disabled people in this country plus their carers, relatives and friends are watching what your party do in relation to disability issues and wondering why you seem disinterested in trying to get their votes by opposing the savage attacks against disabled people being made by the Coalition government. During conference season we wish to remind you, the architects of Employment and Support Allowance to ‘never fall ill, never grow old, never become disabled, never become a carer’, for if you do, as we have found, not even Labour will speak up for you.

Not only am I a carer of my autistic son, who has been treated very badly by our local authourity (Bracknell Forest) in what he is entitled to receive, (education up until the age of 25) that I have had to engage a specialist solictor on legal aid. Legal aid which has also been cut very savagely. But because of his severe condition (he cannot interact with people face to face) so he had been taught behind his bedroom door for 6 1/2 years (very successfully passing many GCSE’s, receiving a distinction and a merit grade in 2 of them) at home by 2 home and hospital tutors. He had his SEN statement ended at 19 last summer, and I have been struggling a whole year to try to reistate his education, so far without success.

My son although autistic deserves and has a right to continue with his education in the best and only way he can cope with at the moment (behind his bedroom door).

 I am also a carer to my elderly mother of 86 too who lives alone. I am 60 myself (an older carer) and my own health is deteriorating very fast, with very little regard from anyone for that, I am also disabled with arthritis, epilepsy, severe depression, high blood pressure and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. No help or support for my son’s own mental health, despite me attending countless meetings in the past, where ‘professionals’ had considered it ‘OK’ to lie to me, to my face but in writing too. Offical complaints I made were literally completely ignored.

Desipte reassurances that assessments undertaken by ‘medical personnel’ at ATOS medicals or Job Centre Plus assessment interviews would understand Autism in all its different presentations, time and again it has been shown not to be the case. So I cannot bear for my son to be put under so much pressure and stress to attend a ESA assessment, so he can’t apply for the ESA benefit he/we so need.

There are so many carers up and down the country in similiar situations watching your conference, and please may I suggest you listen and read the words stated in this link below.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvsX03LOMhI 

  Yours sincerely

  Ms Rosalind Brewer

An opportunity to raise YOUR voice to break the silence

This is a joint venture between CarerWatch, The Broken of Britain, Disabled people Against Cuts and ACTnow. 

Everyone is urged to support this.

To all our members and supporters;

The Labour party conference starts in Liverpool on Saturday. As we all know, Labour were the architects of Employment Support Allowance and the ‘not fit for purpose’ Work Capability Assessment which is so stressful and traumatic it was linked to the suicide of claimants whilst Labour were still in power. The Labour party are the official party of opposition, but they are not opposing the Welfare Reform Bill as they should be and seem to have forgotten that the 10 million sick and or disabled people plus carers, friends and family in the UK have the power to vote. It is time for us to remind Labour that they will not get any of our votes if they do not start to oppose the parts of the Welfare Reform Bill set to return sick people, disabled people and carers to a life of desperation, dependency, despair and charity.

We are asking you to help with a mass email to the Labour party to remind them of our voting power. Please include the following details in your email and send it to Ed Miliband, Margaret Curran (shadow minister for disability) and Liam Byrne (shadow minister for DWP). If you have time please also email it to any Labour MP and particularly any members of the shadow cabinet. We have provided a list of email contacts below.

Please aim to send your email at 11am tomorrow (Thursday the 22^nd September) If you can’t send the email at 11am, don’t worry, just please try to send it at any time between then and the end of Labour party conference on Wednesday 29^th September.

The email subject should read “Your Silence Is Deafening”

We suggest embedding a link to this youtube video “The Sound of Silence” To embed the video into your email just copy and paste the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvsX03LOMhI  

Then please copy the following text into your email;

Dear (insert name here)

‘The 10 million disabled people in this country plus their carers, relatives and friends are watching what your party do in relation to disability issues and wondering why you seem disinterested in trying to get their votes by opposing the savage attacks against disabled people being made by the Coalition government. During conference season we wish to remind you, the architects of Employment and Support Allowance to ‘never fall ill, never grow old, never become disabled, never become a carer’, for if you do, as we have found, not even Labour will speak up for you.’

If you would like to add a short, personal message explaining to Labour how you feel about their lack of support for sick, disabled people and carers then please include it after the suggested text. You might also like to include a photo of yourself, or perhaps a photo of what disability, sickness or caring means to you. Don’t worry if you don’t want to personalise the email, sending the suggested text is fine.

Contact details below

Ed Miliband MP, Leader of the Labour Party

House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Tel: 020 7219 4778
ed.miliband.mp@parliament.uk

 

Shadow Secretary of State for Work & Pensions

Liam Byrne

House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Tel: 020 7219 6953
Fax: 020 7219 1431
byrnel@parliament.uk

 

House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Tel: 020 7219 8102
Fax: 020 7219 6656
margaret.curran.mp@parliament.uk

 

Shadow Home Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities

Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP

coopery@parliament.uk

 

Shadow Chief Secretary

Angela Eagle

eaglea@parliament.uk

 

Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills

John Denham

denhamj@parliament.uk

 

Cabinet Office and Minister for the Olympics

Tessa Jowell

jowellt@parliament.uk

 

Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government

Caroline Flint

House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Tel: 020 7219 4407
Fax: 020 7219 1277
caroline.flint.mp@parliament.uk

 

Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport

Ivan Lewis

House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Tel: 020 7219 2609
lewisi@parliament.uk

 

Shadow Leader of the House of Commons 

Hilary Benn

House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Tel: 020 7219 5770
hilary.benn.mp@parliament.uk

 

Shadow Secretary of State for Defence

Jim Murphy

House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Tel: 020 7219 4615
Fax: 020 7219 5657
jimmurphymp@parliament.uk

 

Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Mary Creagh

House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Tel: 020 7219 6984/020 7219 8766
Fax: 020 7219 4257
creaghm@parliament.uk

 

Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Election Coordinator

Andy Burnham

House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Tel: 020 7219 8250
andy.burnham.mp@parliament.uk

 

Shadow Lord Chancellor, Secretary of State for Justice

Sadiq Khan

House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Tel: 020 7219 6967
Fax: 020 7219 6477
sadiqkhanmp@parliament.uk

 

Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change

Meg Hillier

House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Tel: 020 7219 5325
Fax: 020 7219 8768
meghilliermp@parliament.uk

 

Shadow Secretary of State for Health

John Healey

 

House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Tel: 020 7219 6359
Fax: 020 7219 2451
healeyj@parliament.uk

 

Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland

Shaun Woodward

 

House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Tel: 020 7219 2680
woodwardsh@parliament.uk

 

Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland

Ann McKechin

House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Tel: 020 7219 8239
Fax: 020 7219 1770
ann.mckechin.mp@parliament.uk

Constituency

 

Shadow Secretary of State for Transport

Maria Eagle

House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Tel: 020 7219 4019
Fax: 020 7219 1157
eaglem@parliament.uk

 

Shadow Secretary of State for Wales

Peter Hain

House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Tel: 020 7219 3925
Fax: 020 7219 3816
hainp@parliament.uk

 

 

Steven Timms MP

timmss@parliament.uk
stephen@stephentimms.org.uk

Karen Buck MP

buckk@parliament.uk

Welfare reform Bill – House of Lords –

Tuesday 13th sept 2011 witnessed the 2nd reading of this Bill – House of Lords.

Transcript from Hansard can be found here

Also available on Theyworkforyou website- annotations can be added on right hand side relating to each speech made.

23 references made to carers – details here

Coalition government – a ‘machine’ made from steel

For countless years, with successive governments, family carers have continuously raised their voices outlining the many problems they face, about resources, finances, respite and/or equipment.

Yet no matter how much they chipped away at the brick wall no real action has been taken, by past and present govts. Campaigns have followed one after the other from many individuals, groups, and charities.

We are currently witnessing the biggest shake up of welfare benefits in over 60 years and still the issues surrounding Carers Allowance are not being addressed.  It is the LOWEST of all benefits at £55.55  per week.

As campaigners we will not give up even though the brick wall is now made of re enforced steel. Behind that wall lies a Coalition machine made from cold steel too. It shows NO understanding, NO compassion. It operates so clinically, so precise and its actions prove that it has no heart.

It speaks of Responsibility, Big Society, yet continues on its mission to persecute many disabled people, their families, and carers, with this current Welfare Reform Bill.

Is this the future we want for ourselves, for our children?

A future where disabled people and their families are battered from all directions.

Borrowing the famous words from Winston Churchill and altering them slightly…

Never has so much been given so freely by so few, for the benefit of so many.

 Carers need action and they need it NOW

 Please contact any groups/charities you belong to. Tell them your concerns surrounding Welfare Reform.

Contact your MP . Add your postcode in the box on this link to find their details

Feel free to use this template from Sue Marsh of The Broken of Britain

Support the Hardest Hit campaign which following on from a successful march in May 2011 are now planning local protests.

One simple change re ESA

As individuals any action we take may seem so small, but collectively we can be stronger.