CSCI: Care providers must act on disability equality

The Commission for Social Care Inspection today urged providers to take action to promote equality for disabled people after publishing evidence showing only a minority had done so.

In a bulletin on achieving disability equality, CSCI said that only one in three of a sample of 400 services had reported taking specific action on disability equality in self-assessments submitted to the inspectorate.

A separate survey of 307 disabled service users found 55% had experiences of social care staff not respecting their right to equality.

CSCI chair Denise Platt said: “Disabled people rightly feel they are as much a part of society as anyone else. There are certain physical barriers that can prevent this from happening, such as level access for wheelchair users, and our evidence shows that many care providers have taken action to address these in their services. But there are other obstacles in their way, including communication, negative attitudes and barriers to social inclusion, which still need to be tackled.”

CSCI urged all providers to develop a disability equality strategy, drawn up with the involvement of service users, which should identify barriers to achieving equality, including through raising expectations services have of disabled people.

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