PPlog

There has been little attention paid to how human rights and the Equality Act 2010 are being ignored when mental health trusts make their austerity cuts. A prime example is of a mental health trust: the Norfolk and Suffolk mental health trust and a CCG: the Great Yarmouth and Waveney CCG in their collusion over bed cuts at Carlton Court Lowestoft (see the entry for 3 June 2013). In their latest developments they have set out how they are to proceed in the future: when they ran a consultation for these changes they chose not to carry out an equality impact assessment. Their documents suggest they also undertook little examination of possible inequalities during the consultation. The upshot is, as part of their planning, they have decided to close the adult psychiatry unit at Carlton Court Lowestoft, moving the adult mental health services to Northgate hospital in great Yarmouth. Now I know that having the only mental health hospital in Great Yarmouth causes much difficulty over acce...

Independent Living Fund: Disabled people vow to continue the fight to save independent living This morning after weeks of anxious waiting, disabled people and our supporters learned that the high court has found against the latest legal challenge against the government’s decision to close the Independent Living Fund (1). Disabled campaigners vow to continue the fight in every way that we can.  The campaign to save the Independent Living Fund has been one of the most high profile among the many battles disabled people are currently fighting against current government policy that is detrimentally impacting on disabled people, with disabled activists occupying Westminster Abbey gardens over the summer (2). In November last year the Court of Appeal quashed the government’s decision to close the ILF with the Court of Appeal judges unanimous in their view that the closure of the fund would have an ‘inevitable and considerable adverse effect which the closure of the fund will have, particu...