Report highlights struggle of disabled

Many disabled people in Britain are living socially isolated, cash-strapped lives and struggle to participate in normal activities, a new report indicated yesterday.

The bleak findings revealed that disproportionately high numbers of disabled adults said they had limited engagement in leisure, social and cultural activities, social contact, learning opportunities and paid work.

They also suffered restrictions in using transport, affording expenses or loan repayments, accessing rooms in their home and buildings outside their home.

More than a quarter of adults (26 per cent) were identified as having some kind of disability, according to the Life Opportunities Survey Interim Report published by the Office for National Statistics.

Some 29 per cent were classed as having an impairment of some sort.

The report paints a grim picture of large numbers of disabled people being riddled with so much anxiety and lack of confidence that they struggle to lead a normal life.

Such feelings of uncertainty were found to be the second most common barrier to employment, with 19 per cent of adults with impairments citing them as an impediment in relation to the type or amount of work they did.

These feelings affected the type or amount of work done by only four per cent of adults without impairments.

Feeling insecure also stopped many adults with impairments from using long-distance buses and long-distance travel, with that acting as a barrier to 13 per cent and 12 per cent of them respectively.

This compared to three per cent and two per cent respectively among those without impairments.

More than half of adults (56 per cent) with impairments experienced restrictions in the type or amount of paid work they did, compared with 26 per cent of those without impairments.

Almost half of households where at least one person had an impairment (45 per cent) were unable to afford expenses or make loan repayments.

This compares with 29 per cent of households where no-one has an impairment.

The vast majority of adults with impairments (83 per cent) had limited participation in leisure, social and cultural activities and almost a quarter (24 per cent) had limited social contact.

Financial reasons were behind several problems faced by adults with impairments, including barriers to learning and going on holiday.

Some 32 per cent of households where at least one person had an impairment could not afford to pay for a week’s annual break away from home, compared with 20 per cent of households where no-one had an impairment.

Buildings such as shops and hospitals were found to be harder to access for those with impairments, posing problems for 29 per cent of them, compared to just seven per cent for those without.

Employment opportunities were also more limited for those with impairments than for other people, but reduced working hours helped them overcome this, according to the findings.

Impairments were defined as the loss of physiological and psychological functions of the body, such as loss of sight, hearing, mobility of learning capacity.

Disability charities said the findings showed there was still a long way to go before disabled people in Britain could enjoy the same opportunities as non-disabled people.