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Disabled woman turned away from disability assessment centre because she couldn’t use stairs

Wheelchair users are banned from using lifts under safety restrictions

Friday 12 August 2016 15:50 BST

Sandra Hall was told wheelchair users were banned from using the lift to access the centre due to health and safety reasons (iStockphoto)

A disabled woman was turned away from a disability assessment centre because she couldn't use the stairs.

Sandra Hall, 37, who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and uses a wheelchair, has said she was “humiliated and disgusted” by the ordeal.

Ms Hall was attending the assessment centre in Croydon for a fitness-to-work evaluation in July. She says she gave the centre prior notice that she is unable to walk unaided and is wheelchair bound.

But on arrival, staff told her they did not have the facilities to accommodate her wheelchair, according to ITV news.

Ms Hall was told that in the event of an emergency she would have to use the stairs to leave the building rather than the lift, because wheelchair users are banned from using lifts under health and safety restrictions.

As she was unable to use the stairs she was told it would be a risk to allow her to access the first floor of the building.

She was instead advised to carry out a 14-mile round trip to Balham to complete her assessment, which is a ground-floor facility

Ms Hall said: “I have never felt so humiliated and upset and disgusted in all my life.

“For a place that is meant to be for disabled people it is not really disabled-friendly.”

On the centre’s website a notice warns of the emergency evacuation regulations, but it says support for those unable to use the stairs is available if prior notice is given.

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

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1/77 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Closing Remploy factories

The Work and Pensions Secretary called time on Britain’s system of Remploy factories, which provided subsidised and sheltered employment to disabled people. People employed at the factories protested against their closure and said they provided gainful work. “Is it a kindness to stick people in some factory where they are not doing any work at all? Just making cups of coffee?” Mr Duncan Smith said at the time, defending the decision. “I promise you this is better.” The Remploy organisation was privatised and sold to American workfare provider Maximus, with the majority of the organisation’s factories closed. The future of the remaining sites is unclear

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Scrapping the Independent Living Fund

The £320m Independent Living Fund was established in 1988 to give financial support to people with disabilities. It was scrapped on July 1 2015, with 18,000 often severely disabled people losing out by an average of £300 a week. The money was generally used to help pay for carers so people could live in communities rather than institutions. Councils will get a boost in funding to compensate but it will not cover the whole cost of the fund. This new cash also doesn’t have to be spent on the disabled

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Cut payments for the disabled Access To Work scheme

Iain Duncan Smith is bringing forward a policy that will reduce payments to some disabled people from a scheme designed to help them into work. The £108m scheme, which helps 35,540 people, will be capped on a per-used basis, potentially hitting those with the more serious disabilities who currently receive the most help. The single biggest users of the fund are people who have difficulty seeing and hearing. The cut will come in from October 2015. The charity Disability UK says the scheme actually makes the Government money because the people who gain access to work tend pay tax that more than covers its cost. The DWP does not describe the reduction as a “cut” and says it will be able to spread the money more thinly and cover more people

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Cut Employment and Support Allowance

The latest Budget included a £30 a week cut in disability benefits for some new claimants of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). The Government says it is equalising the rate of disability benefits with Jobseekers Allowance because giving disabled people more help is a “perverse incentive”. The people affected by this cut are those assessed as having a limited capability for work but as being capable of some “work-related activity”. A group of prominent Catholics wrote to Mr Duncan Smith to say there was “no justification” for this cut. Mental health charity Mind, said the cut was “insulting and misguided”

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Risk homelessness with a sharp increase disability benefit sanctions

Official figures in the first quarter of 2014 found a huge increase in sanctions against people reliant on ESA sickness benefit. The 15,955 sanctions were handed out in that period compared to 3,574 in the same period the year before, 2013 – a 4.5 times increase. The homelessness charity Crisis warned at the time that the sharp rise in temporary benefit cuts was “cruel and can leave people utterly destitute – without money even for food and at severe risk of homelessness”. “It is difficult to see how they are meant to help people prepare for work,” Matt Downie, director of policy at the charity added

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Sending sick people to work because of broken fitness to work tests

In 2012 a government advisor appointed to review the Government’s Work Capability Assessment said the tests causing suffering by sending sick people back to work inappropriately. “There are certainly areas where it's still not working and I am sorry there are people going through a system which I think still needs improvement,” Professor Malcolm Harrington concluded. The tests are said to have improved since then, but as recently as this summer they are still coming in for criticism. In June the British Psychological Society said there was “now significant body of evidence that the WCA is failing to assess people’s fitness for work accurately and appropriately”. It called for a full overhaul of the way the tests are carried out. The WCA appeals system has also been fraught with controversy with a very high rate of overturns and delays lasting months and blamed for hardship

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

The bedroom tax

The Government’s benefit cut for people who it says are “under-occupying” their homes disproportionately affects disabled people. Statistics released last year show that around two-thirds of those affected by the under-occupancy penalty, widely known as the ‘bedroom tax’, are disabled. There have been a number of high profile cases of disabled people being moved out of specially adapted homes by the policy. In one case publicised by the Sunday People last week, a 48 year old man with cerebral palsy was forced to bathe in a paddling pool after the tax moved him out of his home with a walk-in shower. The Government says it has provided councils with a discretionary fund to help reduce the policy’s impact on disabled people, but cases continue to arise

It says: “The centre can be accessed by lift but if an emergency evacuation of the building is required, such as a fire alarm, the lift cannot be used. There are 42 steps to the ground floor.

“If you think that you would have difficulty going down the stairs in the event of an emergency or would need assistance from another person, please ring the appointments helpdesk number on your appointment letter at least two days before your appointment date so we can ensure that we provide support for you on the day.”

A spokesman for Maximus UK, which runs the service, told the Independent: “Whenever a customer informs us that they have mobility issues we arrange for them to be seen at another local centre that has assessment rooms on the ground floor. It is important that they let us know in advance. There is a box on the benefit application form specifically for this.”

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