Following judicial review proceedings started by a blind woman and supported by an intervention from us, the Department of Health and Social Care has promised to improve the ways in which it provides information to people who have been asked to shield to protect themselves from coronavirus.
Sarah Leadbetter is registered blind and categorised as clinically extremely vulnerable.
Although Sarah was included in a list of people who should shield to protect themselves from coronavirus, she was only informed of this by a paper letter and was not sent any correspondence in a format that she can access, for instance by email or in a document that is compatible with a voice-reader.
Sarah engaged law firm Leigh Day to bring a judicial review against the government for failing to provide her with information in a format which she could access.
We then applied to intervene in the proceedings to support Sarah's claim that the Department of Health and Social Care was in breach of its duties under the Equality Act 2010, did not comply with the Accessible Information Standard and discriminated against Sarah under Articles 8 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Ahead of a planned hearing on the case, the Department of Health and Social Care has now agreed:
- To reconsider its practice of sending out hardcopy letters to people on the Shielded Patients List without first finding out how they would like to receive information.
- To consider how information on shielding can be given in an accessible format to disabled people and/or people with communication needs who are on the Shielded Patients List.
- To investigate technical issues in identifying communication needs of people on the Shielded Patients List, and to work out how to address shortcomings in the information held in the Personal Demographics Service about communication needs.
The work will be completed within three months and improvements will also be made in recording people’s communication needs in GP records so as to improve communications beyond the pandemic. As improvements are now being made, the judicial review proceedings have been withdrawn.
The above information is from a Equality and Human Rights Commission, News from the EHRC - Wed 31/03/2021