Disability and work: breaking the barriers

In the UK there are around 16 million people with a disability (Kirk-Wade, 2023). In England, in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, 60% of COVID-19-related deaths occurred among disabled individuals. People with learning disabilities faced an astonishing eight times higher risk of death from COVID-19 than the general population. The statistics are alarming but what is equally distressing is that many disabled individuals are not surprised by these findings. These numbers highlight the numerous inequalities that disabled people continue to face in British society (Fenney et al, 2022). The Equality Act 2010 prohibits disability discrimination in various areas of life, including services, employment and education.

There are approximately one million disabled individuals in the UK who aspire to work (Scope, 2023a) but they encounter obstacles that prevent them from doing so, including discrimination by employers, difficulties in accessing necessary support and inflexible working arrangements. Disabled people are being pushed out of jobs because they cannot get the flexibility that they need in order to do their job. Delay in providing them with the equipment and/or support that they need may mean that they have to work without reasonable adjustments being made and as a result they can be perceived as underperforming