Manor House and Ashbury hotel, viewed on wheels

Good range of crafts and food was great with a wide choice.

However as a disabled person, a wheelchair user,  I found the access not what it said on the tin. Easy access rooms were anything but, lacking space. Had to move the bed to even get in the room. Wet rooms were small with a strange layout. It was the only toilet I could use, with difficulty, as others around the site had very limited access despite being easy access. Building layout made moving around a challenge outside routes bumpy but easier to use.

I had asked if all craft activities were accessible was told yes only to find some weren't. Also difficult to get to materials and some staff didn't offer assistance. Didn't risk using the pool after looking at it, athough I planned to. Didn't attempt any of the other activities, strange access generally made me wary.

Some staff were really helpful, others not at all. Some had awful attitudes to disabled people. Not talking to me at all but the person I was with. I queried access to our designated table, first they said it was ok, then said I was in the way.

Some good pointd but not somewhere I'd go again.

Human catastrophe is having an effect on how disabled people are treated

The UN has said the Tory Government has committed a human catastrophe with their treatment of those with disabilities. Cuts to services and benefits, a welfare system geared to refusing help unless challanged repeately that has a culture of fear that causes harm to many just at the thought of having to engage with it. Those things don't help but add in the rhetoric that names us as scroungers, suggests that can't work is actually won't work and lie that those in need are being supported and you have a timebomb. 

The UN are concerned that treating people in this way will lead to people being seriously harmed by others. I am not, I am concerned that that is how we are treated and that said harm has already been done and continues. Tens of thousands have died, many many more injured and being an object of hate, hate incidents  and hate crime are  a fact of life to varying degrees, for many disabled people. Dsabled people now exist in a culture of fear for their safety and total dread at whatcpunitive action the Goverent will take next.

I don't want words met by complete disregard by our Government who agreed to only reflect on their actions. I want action to  protect and stop the regime of fears

For World Suicide Prevention Day I tell my story.

I'm no real fan of Awareness Days because people with illnesses and life issues are aware of them every day, and so must we be if we really want to make a difference. That said today is World Suicide Prevention Day, the theme is take a minute, change q life, save a life, and because of that I'm telling my story because I know it can make a difference.

I have Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, CPTSD, and a few years ago I was so unwell that I struggled through the most simple tasks. I asked the professionals around me  for extra help, only to be told that I needed to make more effort, I said I was scared I would hurt myself.  Things came to a head when I was told by a professional that people like me annoyed him because we didn't help ourselves. I then asked for immediate help as I felt at risk only to be told to go away. I took an overdose, I didn't  want to die, I needed help.

From what was my lowest point my life changed. The paramedics who helped me made a point of asking how I was whenever they came back into A&E that day. The family member who sat with me, and got loads of grief, but just took it, and the nurse who smiled at me, all made a difference. Back home I'll never forget the helpline worker who just listened and told me about different support I could have, I tried everything I was offered, and it made a difference, I got the help I needed and the people helping me listened and worked my way. It wasn't all mental health support. Sometimes it was as simple as having a cup of coffee with someone.

I thank everyone of those people they helped me save me. I know that if I had been listened to and supported when I first struggled, it probably wouldn't have happened. What happened to me is the reason I ask you to take a minute, and change a life, save a life not just today but every day. Many of those who helped me weren't mental health professionals, they just cared.

Have disabled people become so hated its now acceptable to be rude?

I was trying to leave a shop which was crowded, and trying to not ask someone in a much bigger chair to move because that would have made things difficult for tbem. I asked a little girl aged about 8 politely if she could move,  explaining why I couldn't go the other way. She told me it was inconvenient and refused, her mum agreed with her! As I moved away, and then had to ask another wheelchair user  to move, said child then said she is going the other way, and her mum replied she should have done that first.

I've encountered more hate and negativity recently than I have in my lifetime. I blame the media and Goverment who treat  disabled people with disdain and total ignorance, but I can't ignore the fact that responsible adults speak fot themselves and seem not to worry what their children say. I would never have replied in the way they spoke and it is never acceptable. No longer should we excuse it because of Government rhetoric people make their own choices.

If people need telling I'll say it, we are people like you with the same rights. Your rudeness and ignorance is  unacceptable.

Only as sick as the Conservatives want you to be

The Government is considering making it mandatory for those in the Support Group of Employment and Support Allowance to take part in Work Related Activity. Currently such claimants are considered too disabled or unwell to be required to do these activities, they can do them voluntarily. Work related activity can include, not limited to, regular interviews, work experience, job club, training or education.

I don't agree with this proposal anymore than I do those on the Work Related Activity rate doing them. Sick people are no longer allowed to be sick, the Government no longer wants them to exist, they want to change the law so that they don't.

This proposal endangers the well being of those too ill to work. Forcing people to take part in activities decided by someone else to be suitable, won't help people get back to work. Instead it will add to their stress and uncrease their symptoms. Many will attempt to participate for fear of losing benefits if they don't. Disabled people have already had benefits sanctioned in the WRAG for  not attending interviews or activities and among all claimants for not attending assessments with good reason including being in hospital, being too ill, or dealing with family emergency. Some people who have already died have received letters threaning4 their benefits. These propsals will further the serious harm, including thousands of deaths, already done to sick, disabled and vulnerable since the Conservatives turned welfare into open warfare.

Source Evolve Politics

When welfare is warfare

Stories are doing the rounds that DWP are not following the own regulations in dealing with PIP claims.

Several stories going around but the gist is that mandatory reconsiderations are  being sent out before claimants have decison  notices. They didn't ask for one, because the law says you can't before you have a decision notice. MR is the first part of the appeal process. It is for claimants  not DWP to decide if this step is taken.  It is in my opinion a cynical and dangerous attempt to squander claimants rights, and ensure they face an appeal wasting public funds. Instead the aim should be to improve the decision making process, to reduce the need for the appeal process to be used, and where it is, resolving disputes at the earliest opportunity, making it a quicker, cheaper and less stressful process.

This is very serious because it denies the right to defend rights, the right to challange. It is another flaw in a flawed system, the purpose of which seems to be to deny those who qualify their rightful enritlement. The aim should be to support those who need it, instead the process seems hellbent on proving that nobody does. It should be radically changed before it isn't used because blanket refusal becomes a given.

Original Source Disability News Service