The Friendly Times

New figures this week show that one in eleven disabled people is now unemployed. That's the highest rate in six years. And disabled people are losing jobs at nearly ten times the rate of non-disabled people.  The government is concerned. Charities are alarmed. Reports are being written.  But here's the thing. We're not short of explanations. We've known for decades that disabled people face discrimination at the very first hurdle — the job application. Cardiff University researchers sent over 4,000 fictitious applications to real employers between 2022 and 2023. The only difference between them was whether the applicant disclosed a disability. Disabled candidates had a 15% lower chance of being called for an interview. For less skilled roles, that gap rose to 21%. Here's the part that really stays with me. When researchers gave disabled applicants better qualifications — stronger CVs, better references — it made almost no difference. The discrimination persisted any...

Alan Graham was 75, Deaf from birth, and a BSL user. After a fall, he was admitted to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham and diagnosed with heart failure. He was in the hospital for 11 weeks. During that time, the Trust provided a professional BSL interpreter on just three occasions. So who filled the gap? His grandchildren. Connor, who was 16, and Mia, who was 12. Staff asked them to relay medical information to their grandfather and their mother, Jennifer, who is also Deaf. On one occasion, Connor was asked to tell his mother that her father might not survive the night — and that CPR should not be attempted if the need arose. Alan died the following day. Let that sit for a moment. A child was asked to deliver the worst possible news to his mother because the hospital couldn't be bothered to book an interpreter. Not once, in a moment of crisis, but repeatedly over eleven weeks. Jennifer said she asked for an interpreter every day. Her children just wanted to visit their granda...