Written evidence from Name Withheld (DEG0050)

I am responding to your call for evidence through Scope, the disability equality charity. I want to share my experiences of the barriers I've faced in work and what can be improved to help disabled people in the future.

I've answered two questions below as part of your call for evidence.

What extra support would you benefit from in work? Or what would you change about existing support on offer?

I have faced multiple disciplinaries whilst working for the NHS as a support worker. I have been put on stage 3 attendance support plan and was offered no support. my absences were clearly related to my multiple disabilities including mental illness and severe asthma. I felt persecuted for struggling with my disabilities whilst working for the national health service and embarrassed to talk about my struggles with anyone at work. Senior staff members joke about my mental illness and use it as a guise to talk about their own mental health issues. throughout the pandemic I have been shielding and have never felt so excluded from the world in my life. After almost 20 weeks off work, I was offered no phased return or support on resuming. Multiple staff members asked me why I was off and a manager who was allegedly shielding repeatedly came into work.

Looking to the future, what does the Government need to improve on to help disabled people get into, stay and progress in work?

We need legal framework to support us further. Disabled people struggle enough to gain employment, let alone being constantly threatened with unemployment due to being off with disability related illness. Enabling environments with accessible entrances and exits. Need management with disabilities and not just tokenistic jobs either.

The disability employment gap has been stuck close to 30 percent for over a decade, and the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic has seen disabled people falling out of work faster than non-disabled people. 

Scope wants the Government to deliver on its pledge to tackle the disability employment gap. The Government must use the opportunity of the forthcoming National Strategy for Disabled People to set out plans to close the gap.

I hope that the evidence I have provided, alongside research from Scope will prove useful to the committee.

December 2020