With the knowledge that 179 people are engaged in ' therapeutic work ' within the
Surrey & Borders NHS Trust's various employment and training schemes without any contracts or pay scales in place and official confirmation that the Trust is not prepared to share information or debate with service users on this issue we perhaps need to be taking stock of what we have achieved so far and what we havent achieved and think about where we need to go from here if we are to campaign more effectively.
Do we continue solely focussing on the garden centre workers? , who clearly were treated in the most appalling way here or do we widen the campaign to include the other Surrey & Borders employment and training schemes and activities where no one really has a clue what is going on as there are no mechanisms for appropriate scrutiny and monitoring and Surrey and Borders arent about to say.
Jill has flagged up that
the issue of workplace rights for people with disabilities is a national problem , and she did so on the basis of an official DoH and DWP
report that also said wage discrimination was particularly bad within the public and voluntary sectors. With the
UN currently drafting a convention on disability rights and freedoms , planned to be the first new treaty of the 21st century , this issue clearly has an international dimension as well.
There is also an often forgotten treatment and care aspect , it is one thing to support disabled people's right to employment and training, that's a positive step , quite another for those providing treatment and care to simply target people with disabilities to get them off benefits and into work irrespective of whether they can cope with this or the necessary support network is in place.
It's a complex issue and one public bodies and charities, recently slammed for exploiting disabled people in workplace and training environments, should not be allowed to consider a solution for on their own. The Surrey and Borders Trust was allowed to do this during its recent review of all of its work services and cutting payments to rather than improving the lot of its disabled workers was the result.
How do you support people by taking money away from them and making them work for nothing?
There is also a question about how we can influence without getting overly involved and becoming part of the problem and this dilemma came home with force when reading the minutes from a recent Surrey PPI Forum meeting where items on payments to service users and carers and their not being including in the decision making process were clearly ongoing issues without solution in sight and yet there on the same minutes was a crisp and decisive note confirming that £400 more was being made available to the PPI forum for expenses.....
Please post your comments and suggestions on way forward for this campaign.