NHS accused over deaths of disabled patients – Health professionals need training and I’m a Person Too! can help.
Today the NHS is accused of causing or contributing to the deaths of at least 74 patients with a learning disability because of poor care that reveals enduring “institutional discrimination” among doctors and nurses.
The 74 vulnerable patients’ deaths over the past decade were either caused or complicated by mistakes in hospitals and decisions by staff who failed to treat them properly and displayed ignorance or indifference to their plight, according to the report issued by Mencap.
Minister Paul Burstow stated that: “Those providing care – whether NHS, charity or private sector – have a duty to make sure that care is high quality and safe.”
Professor Steve Field, chair of the NHS Future Forum, which advises the government on health policy, backed Mencap’s demand for NHS staff to undergo fuller training to help them better understand such patients and improve their communication with them. “During our listening exercise we heard from patients and staff that health professionals working in the NHS need better training in dealing with such complex and challenging patients,” Field said
I’m a Person Too! is an award winning training organisation which specialises in delivering training to health professionals. To date we have trained over 2000 people within the health sector enabling health professionals to have a greater understanding of learning disabilities to ensure the service they offer truly meets the needs of disabled people.
To find out more about I’m a Person Too! please visit our website www.imapersontoo.org.uk or call us on 0303 123 1107
I’m a person too! wins National Training Award for Yorkshire and Humber.
I’m a person too has won the National Training Awards for Small Enterprise in Yorkshire and Humber. We celebrated at the Millennium Galleries Sheffield and then were presented with their award at the National Training Awards Ceremony at ExCel London.
New Training Taster Session on June 7th
Join us for another opportunity to experience the powerful effect of learning how to communicate with people with learning disabilities as presented by our advocates!
On Tuesday 7th June 2011, we will be providing another 2 hour taster session in Trowbridge, Wiltshire (location details coming soon!) to give you an insight into our full day’s training programme.
As we’ve shown in previous articles, communication can be a major challenge in all walks of life and for businesses, this can mean losing out to major sources of income and sales potential. All of our workshops include in-depth learning experiences to understand how to communicate more effectively with people with learning disabilities so our taster sessions give you an insight into the key issues facing people with learning difficulties and provide you with useful tips and ideas on how to communicate better with people.
I’m a Person Too training, delivered by our in-house teams, can help you make a real and positive difference in your organisation. You can choose one of our existing programmes or we can create a bespoke package to meet your specific requirements. What’s more, if you are a small or medium-sized enterprise or charity (employing less than 250 people), there is grant funding available for business owners and directors that we can help you access, enabling you to have a full programme and then claim 50% of its cost back!
Places are limited in this session (we make sure we provide the right learner to trainer ratio for you to get the most out of your learning experience!) and available on a “first come, first served” basis, so you will need to book by contacting us via the Contact Form below.
We look forward to seeing you there!
April is Autism Awareness Month!
Hopefully you will have noticed a lot of articles and news in the newspapers, on-line, on the radio and on the television – all talking about autism!
And it’s all because April is Autism Awareness Month around the world!
Kicking off with the fourth annual World Autism Awareness Day on Saturday 2nd April – promoted by Stephen Fry on Twitter to his 2.5 million followers – you may have noticed some buildings being lit up in beautiful blue light around the UK. This was all part of the world-wide ‘Light it up Blue’ campaign to shine a light on autism – the above link has more pictures of places we know well bathed in blue light, including Sydney Opera House, Niagara Falls and the Empire State Building in New York.
In the UK, there have been a lot of really helpful and useful features and programmes which helped to open up more knowledge about autism and the amazing feats people with autism have achieved. Highlights included:
- Radio 4′s Between Ourselves programme (featuring a discussion between two people with Asperger’s Syndrome: Frederick Veal, who was only recently diagnosed and Ben Delo who found out he had Asperger’s at the age of 11. Listen to their very personal journeys of discovery.)
- Sky featured ‘Autism: The Musical‘ on their Atlantic Channel – the story of the Miracle Project ‘s pioneering techniques to help autistic children interact socially while expressing themselves creatively through musical theatre. Filmed over six months, the documentary followed 5 autistic children from Los Angeles as they took part in the theatre programme, from writing and rehearsing all the way through to performing on stage in a live musical.
- Sky Atlantic will also be featuring the award-winning film Temple Grandin starring Claire Danes about Dr. Temple Grandin who was named in the USA’s Time Magazine’s “100 most influential people in the world” list! This screening list also included a transcript of the interview between the lead actress and Dr Grandin.
- BBC On-Line Health News: Autistic brains “organised differently” say scientists – an article about the research carried out by University of Montreal scientists who have found that the brain areas that deal with visual information are highly developed in autistic people, which may provide an explanation as to why some have extraordinary abilities to remember and draw objects in detail.
- The United Nation’s Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon completed a webcast about World Autism Awareness Day, finishing with the request “Together, let us travel this road toward a more caring and inclusive world.”
- The Government published new on-line tools ‘Fulfilling and rewarding lives: Evaluating Progress’ where the Department of Health shows what local authorities need to do to implement the Adult Autism Strategy, as well as give adults with autism the tools to monitor what happens in their local area, such as access to services & how they can have greater involvement in service planning, among other things (as part of the Autism Act 2009).
We hope you can use the above links to get a better understanding of the autism spectrum – but if you would like to get a more specific understanding about autism and how to communicate with people with autism, the I’m A Person Too training team include several trainers who live with autism and can share their real life experiences. Contact us to find out when we are running our next programme near you!
Another Person’s View!
It’s exciting times at I’m a Person Too we have won the National Training Awards for Yorkshire and Humber which has been a fabulous boost for our small organisation.
We were joined by Martin Wainwright the Northern Editor of the Guardian and Geoff Adams-spink former BBC Disability Correspondent, keep an eye out for Geoffs blog at www.adams-spink.com.
Our website is now finished take a look at www.imapersontoo.org.uk and let us know what you think.
How much are we worth to your organisation?
Last year the Department for Business Innovation and Skills’ Office for Disability Issues published a study that it had commissioned Atkins Ltd to undertake into researching the case for the disabled consumer and their value to businesses in the UK as part of the Government’s 2012 Legacy Promise for Disabled People. One of the main aims of this legacy promise was to enable a radical shift in the perceptions of disability within our society with the goal of removing barriers to inclusion, particularly within business.
This had in part been triggered by the outcomes on a consumer survey completed in 2006 by the Employers’ Forum on Disability that revealed:
the market potential of the disabled consumer is estimated to be worth £80 billion!
BUT
- 83% of disabled people surveyed had to ‘walk away’ from making a purchase because they were unable to access business premises or were subjected to such poor customer service that they chose to shop elsewhere
- Poor customer service included the human factor of rude staff who were unwilling to help as well as facilities issues such as inaccessible websites and telephone systems
- nearly 20% of disabled people came up against barriers when they wanted to make a purchase on a frequent basis
- 3 types of businesses were highlighted for causing problems for disabled customers: public transport, restaurants/pubs and corner shops
- 66% of disabled people chose to shop where they have received good customer service related to their disability
- 58% said the way in which businesses treat them affects the shopping habits of family and friends
- 78% of the respondents were solely/mostly responsible for their household spending
Building on this, the Atkins’ research focussed on what needed to be changed to make businesses (in particular Small & Medium sized Enterprises, known as SMEs) take more notice of the consumer needs of disabled people. A wide range of stakeholders were consulted, including SME membership and Disabled Persons organisations to get a view from “both sides of the fence”.
This report concluded that whilst disabled consumers present a very significant target market worth £80 billion (and this was the 2006 estimate!), they are very poorly served by businesses, particularly those in the retail sector. We find this staggering as you think that up to 20% of your business’ customer base may be disabled! This means that if your competitors are more accessible and demonstrate that they know exactly what the disabled consumer wants, you risk losing up to a fifth of your customer base! Case studies show how organisations with better accessibility will increase their customer base more rapidly, are more profitable, grow faster and can continue to hold a distinct advantage over their competitors. Which side of this fence do you want your business to sit?
I’m a Person Too’s training programme will give your organisation the knowledge, understanding and skills to communicate effectively with people with learning disabilities. Can you afford to miss out on this competitive advantage?
You can contact us to find out more about our training programmes via our About Us Page or Tweet us or visit our Facebook Page! We often have taster seminars to provide an insight into how our training works – they will be listed on this blog as they become available. Alternatively we would be happy to provide a bespoke programme specifically designed for your organisation.
You can access a pdf of the full report on the BIS website here: BIS Report: 2012 LEGACY FOR DISABLED PEOPLE: INCLUSIVE AND ACCESSIBLE BUSINESS Improving messages to SMEs: The case for the disabled customer
Free Training Taster Session on April 7th
Join us for the opportunity to experience the powerful effect of learning how to communicate with people with learning disabilities as presented by our advocates!
On Thursday 7th April 2011, we will be providing a 2 hour taster session between 1:30 and 3:30 pm in Trowbridge, Wiltshire to give you an insight into our full day’s training programme – and what’s more, it’s free of charge!
Communication can be a major challenge in all walks of life and all of our workshops include in-depth learning experiences to understand how to communicate more effectively with people with learning disabilities. This taster session will raise your awareness of the key issues facing people with learning difficulties and provide you with useful tips and ideas on how to communicate better with people.
I’m a Person Too training, delivered by our in-house teams, can help you make a real and positive difference in your organisation. You can choose one of our existing programmes or we can create a bespoke package to meet your specific requirements.
Places are limited in this session (we make sure we provide the right learner to trainer ratio for you to get the most out of your learning experience!) and available on a “first come, first served” basis, so you will need to book by contacting us via the Contact Form below.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Training for Positive Change
Welcome to I’m a Person Too’s blog site that accompanies our website, Twitter feed, FaceBook Cause page and You Tube Channel. We’re just starting out in the virtual world of social media so would love to have your comments and advice on what we’re doing as we’re all about communicating!
I’m A Person Too is a national training programme run by people with learning disabilities and their co-trainers that provides the means for professionals, carers and anyone who comes across a person with a learning difficulty to be able to communicate effectively.
Imagine for a moment that you cannot communicate with the world around you. In your mind, you know exactly what you want to say and do, but no-one listens or understands. You can see how frustrating this would be but also think about the danger and difficulties you risk because no-one understands what you’re trying to say.
This is where the training programme developed and delivered by I’m a Person Too solves the problem. We give people the key that unlocks these barriers to communication – to find a way to help others LISTEN and LEARN from the individuals who have the learning disability. This way, two very important things happen:
- the individual with the learning disability can have control over what they want to do and say
- the professionals, carers and anyone who needs to interact learns how to communicate effectively.
The I’m a Person Too! training programme has been developed by three established self-advocacy charities across the country, located in London, Rotherham and Trowbridge. It has been piloted and delivered successfully across a number of different support services, including Teaching Hospitals, GPs surgeries, Emergency Services, Libraries and Job Centre Plus. In addition, it is supported by Sheffield Hallam University who provide impact assessment so that organisations can measure the effect of the training on their staff. Now our training is available to any organisation that has staff who have a customer facing role.
On this blog, we’ll be sharing our experiences of delivering the training, along with tips and guidance on how to make your communication much more effective with everyone you meet. And we look forward to hearing your comments on what/how we’re doing too!
