NHS continues to flout rights of disabled people to health care, watchdog says

Campaigners have repeated their call for more to be done to meet the health needs of people with learning disabilities and mental health problems—who, they say, continue to be failed by the NHS in England and Wales.

One year after its damning report into the delivery of health care to disabled people, the Disability Rights Commission, the statutory watchdog organisation for people with disabilities in England, Wales, and Scotland, says in a new report that little has changed to bridge the gap in health care.

Only two strategic health authorities in England—North East and South West—have developed adequate schemes to comply with new laws on disability equality that came into force in December 2006, says the report. Of the remaining eight authorities six have schemes that are unacceptable and two—Yorkshire and the Humber and London—have failed to address the issue of equal rights for …