James, in his late 50s, has a learning disability along with a number of physical disabilities. He’s a regular attendee of one of our user involvement projects and has been an active member of the group for over a year.
James lives independently in his own flat and has support workers visit him daily for day-to-day care. James doesn’t have access to digital technology and so relies on others for information about services available in his community. He’s found this increasingly limiting as more and more services are now provided online and it’s often hard to find out about them without access to a computer.
Due to a health concern, James decided to have an at-home medical test. However, he found that no reasonable adjustments – such as Easy Read literature – had been made available for James regarding:
- instructions on how to do the test at home
- opening the packaging
- receiving the test results
Furthermore, to return the test an email was required to receive his results, which he didn’t have access to. This was to be followed by a computer operated telephone call which therefore couldn’t adapt to James’ specific communication needs.
James got in touch with the user involvement group ‘My Health, My Choice‘ to ask for advice and support. The Advocacy Project staff were able to support James through the necessary steps to process his test, as well ask for his input to inform larger discussions around how to make NHS at-home tests more inclusive.
The digital divide is a growing issue for many people with varying communication needs and it can be particularly isolating for people with learning disabilities. With the support of groups like ‘My Health, My Choice‘, we are able to act as an intermediary for people who don’t have access to a computer or mobile phone, but also provide a platform for their voices to be heard in order to improve services in the area.
For more about how barriers to communication can limit equity of access to health care, read one of our service users’ blog post here.
Some of the details of these cases have been changed to protect the identity of the service users, along with photos. However, these are accurate examples of how we work with people as part of our Advocacy service, and the difference that the support can make to their lives.