1 May 2020

Written evidence submitted by Disability Rights UK (COV0056)

 

Introduction to Disability Rights UK

Disability Rights UK is the leading charity of its kind in the UK. We are run by and for people with lived experience of disability or health conditions. We are disabled people leading change, working towards our vision of a society where everyone can participate equally. We are a membership organisation that campaigns for change, based on our members’ views and with information about their experiences around the country. 

 

In view of the work our organisation undertakes, we have chosen to respond to questions 2 and 4 of this consultation from the perspective of the disabled community; i.e. what the government and food industry have done to support disabled people to access sufficient healthy food, what more needs to be done, and how the government, NGOs and the food industry can work together to facilitate that.

 

Q2. Are the Government and food industry doing enough to support people to access sufficient healthy food; and are any groups not having their needs met? If not, what further steps should the Government and food industry take?

 

Disabled people are one of the most negatively impacted groups of people in the Covid-19 global pandemic, not least because many disabled people may have a health condition that makes contracting a virus more likely. In addition, disabled people often face a myriad of barriers to daily living, ranging from inaccessible transport and technology, through to increased poverty. Thus, when a common routine practice, such as shopping for groceries, is suddenly and significantly altered, the impacts can be felt in a very short time frame and be far reaching. For this reason, any decisions to change the ways in which people ordinarily shop must be made in conjunction with disabled people, to mitigate the negative impacts. Local Disabled People’s Organisations inform us that access to food is the area of greatest concern to their members and service users.

 

The government and the food industry did not initially take adequate steps to support all disabled people and people with long term health conditions to access sufficient healthy food. Initial efforts excluded a significant number of disabled people. We appreciate that those identified by the government as clinically most at-risk of contracting the virus needed to be contacted urgently and granted priority access for online shopping. However, the government and the supermarkets failed to realise that being at-risk includes non-medical impairments, often coupled with social circumstances; for this reason, there will be an increased number of disabled people who ordinarily would have little or no difficulty with in-store or online food shopping. However, owing to the unprecedented demand for home delivery, the lack of availability of certain goods and the in-store restrictions in place, shopping for basic items has become a difficult, even impossible and most stressful task for many disabled people, and one that is likely to increase the likelihood of contracting the virus if urgent action is not taken.

 

In-store shopping:

A one hour early morning set-aside shopping slot was offered by most supermarkets for their disabled customers. However, there are some flaws to this, which would have been avoided had there been early engagement with Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs):

 

 

Online shopping and home delivery:

Access to on online shopping delivery slots was suddenly taken away from disabled people, and people with long-term health conditions, who had been using these services regularly as their means of getting food.

The home delivery slots set aside for people advised by the government to shield (i.e. identified as clinically most at-risk), were not accessible to everyone in that cohort. Not everyone has internet access or feels able to cope with on-line shopping. Furthermore, for those who are able to use the internet, they found it nigh-on impossible and stressful to get through via the telephone to register for the service. In addition, having to rely on a telephone service to register, or as the means to order food, or to arrange deliveries, is very difficult for people with hearing impairments. Age related hearing and/or sight loss means that older people might also be disproportionately disadvantaged. 

 

There have also been reported issues regarding the security of food deliveries. People are reporting theft of their food deliveries from their doorsteps, leaving them in an even more vulnerable situation.  This is a particularly difficult situation for people with hearing impairments who may not hear a knock on the door and for those who need help to get their groceries into their homes.

 

Standardised food boxes:

Many supermarkets have chosen to offer a food box for a set price to people considered vulnerable and required to shield. This was designed to speed up getting essential food and household supplies to disabled people. However, feedback has been that there has been no option to indicate any dietary requirements whether they be for cultural, religious or health reasons. In such instances, standardised food boxes lead to food waste, as has been reported.  People will not be able to pass on these food stuffs to others, due to social distancing etc. There have also been reports that the cost of the goods is not competitive in relation to an in-store shop for similar produce. These are issues for many disabled people who are required to follow a certain diet for health reasons or for whom income is already very limited. In addition, disabled people have the same rights as non-disabled people to have a diet that is based on cultural and/or religious beliefs.

Emergency Food Delivery Scheme:

To be eligible for this scheme you had to be one of the 1.5 million people identified as clinically most at risk. This is not a logical criterion to use, as many of these people would be supported by family and friends, whilst there will be many people who are perhaps less at risk from a medical perspective, yet more at risk due to social barriers around their disability or health condition. Eligibility should have covered a wider range of conditions and focused on people living alone and/or without support. From the outset, people should have been able to self-refer, either by telephone or online, and been able to communicate dietary needs and their permission to share their personal data with the supermarkets. Reliance on others to provide food items may mean people are unable to access their dietary requirements (e.g. gluten free, lactose free), due to lack of availability of these products, or because the people who are making up the food boxes are not being able to source such items easily.

 

Data sharing:

It was unethical and a breach of the Data Protection Act 2018 and GDPR for the government to provide a list of names and contact details of people identified as “vulnerable”, to the major supermarkets.

 

The crisis has revealed that supermarkets do not know who their disabled customers are. They have therefore struggled to make reasonable adjustments and their approaches have been varied and fragmented. The government and the major supermarkets must work with disabled people’s organisations to identify the best way of providing safe and accessible shopping for people with a range of impairments and health conditions so that they are not inadvertently negatively affected by the current restrictions to shopping. They need to develop coordinated strategies to meet the needs of disabled customers through the crisis and beyond.

 

 

Q4. How effectively has the Government worked with businesses and NGOs to share information on disruptions to the supply chain and other problems, and to develop and implement solutions? How effectively have these actions been communicated to the public?         

 

The initial reaction by the government did not include working with NGOs as far as we are aware. We therefore wrote to government ministers on the 27th March, to express our concerns about the government sharing personal data with supermarkets and supermarkets’ failure to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people, particularly if they were not identified by the government as being clinically most at-risk.  

 

We also wrote the Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to request that the emergency food delivery scheme:

 

 

We also wrote to nine major supermarket groups to advise them on how to make instore and online shopping more accessible to disabled people. To-date, only three have acknowledged our letter with a response; and in general, their responses neither answered our specific questions, nor suggested steps to take on board our recommendations.

 

In addition, as part of a newly formed group of charities representing disabled, older people’s and unpaid carers’ charities, we wrote to DEFRA, to ask that the Government involve our organisations in the following ways:

 

 

Until recently, disability organisations were not being consulted by DEFRA. We should have been consulted before the emergency food delivery scheme was launched. We are pleased that DEFRA has now responded to these requests and is consulting with us and the other charities and is assisting us in our dialogue with the supermarkets. We support the continuation of this dialogue.

However, we would ask that there is more transparency about what is being done to improve efforts and that supermarkets are encouraged to work directly with representative organisations such as ours. Disability organisations have found it hard to have direct discussions with supermarkets and have been told that the supermarkets will only listen to government. This is totally unacceptable.

We would also expect that lessons have been learned from this situation and highlight that early engagement with representative charities is key to successful outcomes in these kinds of unprecedented situations.

 

 

End.

 

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