Our next agenda item is a report back from Jamie Hepburn and Ken Macintosh on their fact-finding visit to Deafblind Scotland as part of our your say work, which is looking at the impact of welfare reform on individuals.
First, I place on record my thanks to Deafblind Scotland for hosting myself and Ken Macintosh, and Rebecca Macfie, who came along to support Ken and me on our visit.
I will not read out the whole report that is in front of us; obviously, members have that report. The main thing that I took from the visit—I think that the experience of deafblind people is not dissimilar to that of other groups of people with a particular condition—is that individuals are dealing with a system that does not meet their distinct needs. However, I think that the problem is particularly acute for deafblind people, which perhaps reflects a wider issue of society not recognising the factors that affect them.
From the individuals who spoke to us, it was pretty clear that the condition is not always visible to people. Sometimes neither element of their condition—the fact that they have hearing loss or sight loss—is apparent to people who deal with them. Almost invariably, one element is not apparent if the other one is. That is perhaps an issue for wider society, but it is particularly relevant for deafblind people who are trying to interact with the welfare system.
We were told about the lack of specific and necessary support. One deafblind person told us that only four social workers deal specifically with deaf people in Glasgow—that is not specifically deafblind people, but deaf people. Another service user told us that she had been put with the older people’s social work team, even though she was only 45. Such a lack of expertise can sometimes cause difficulties for deafblind people who are accessing the welfare system.
Another issue is the lack of support and financial assistance to complete application forms for social security. Each individual who was present relies heavily on their guide communicator. One individual, who is entitled to eight hours of guide communicator support, had to use a huge swathe of that time—almost all of it—to complete the forms, which left him with no time to do other necessary things, such as go to the GP or get out and about.
Concern was expressed about the lack of information available in a format that deafblind people can access about what the personal independence payment and other benefits mean to those who currently receive disability living allowance.
There was a call from Deafblind Scotland for people who are registered as blind and deaf to receive benefits automatically and not be subject to assessment—and, crucially, not be subject to reassessment. I suggest that we take that on board as part of the work that we are doing.
We need to communicate our findings to the DWP, which is relevant to our committee. There are other wider issues that we should perhaps make the Health and Sport Committee aware of.
I support what Jamie Hepburn said. The meeting was very helpful. We met three officers from Deafblind Scotland, who all spoke for the organisation: Drena O’Malley, who we all know and who is our main point of contact; Ruth Dorman, who is the chief executive; and Steven Joyce. We then met three people who use the organisation, who spoke to us as witnesses, as it were: Christine Fry, Frankie Thompson and Maria Crawford.
From a welfare reform point of view, what was striking was that the messages that we heard were very similar to those that we have heard from other witnesses about the difficulties that they are experiencing with welfare reform.
Two points that are specific to deafblind people also struck me. First, deafblind people may or may not have care or support needs, but before they have care and support needs, they have communication needs. If you are deaf, your communication needs are met automatically in many circumstances and you are then assessed for your care. If you are deaf and blind, your communication needs are assessed as part of your care and the cost of meeting those needs comes out of your care budget. Whatever care needs you have, you cannot even begin to access anything—you cannot go out of the house, you cannot go to the shops and you cannot fill in a form to be reassessed for work capability or do anything else relating to the welfare reform agenda—without using your guide communicator. Jamie Hepburn referred to that earlier.
There is therefore a bizarre difference between the support that is given to deaf people and the support that is given to deafblind people: deaf people automatically get communication support and deafblind people do not—it comes out of their care budget. That is quite upsetting for those in the deafblind community, some of whom had been deaf before and had gone blind.
The second point, which Jamie Hepburn touched on, is that deafblind people will not get better. It is yet another of the many examples at the heart of the welfare reform agenda where we are reassessing people who clearly will not improve; we are treating them as if they will improve when they cannot improve. That is not just a source of frustration and it is not just illogical; it is very upsetting for deafblind people. The two points that were repeated over and over again at the meeting were that people felt stressed and anxious and that they felt bullied. That is a familiar story, given other people’s experiences of the welfare reform agenda, but with the added complication that I mentioned.
I agree with Jamie Hepburn that we might need to look separately at the issue of why deafblind people have to have their communication needs met out of their care budget, as opposed to out of a communication budget. Perhaps we should explore that with the Scottish Government. If someone goes to Glasgow City Council, for example, the people who are assessing and helping them might not have any knowledge or experience of deafblind people and, therefore, there might be incidents in which people are put into older people’s services, rather than having their specific needs addressed.
I take on board the points that Jamie Hepburn and Ken Macintosh have made. This comes on the back of our your say evidence from our previous meeting, when we heard about people with degenerative and long-term conditions being affected by the work capability assessment in particular.
We need to flag up this issue to the UK Government. Given the fact that people who are not going to improve are continually being put through the trauma of these tests, we need to make sure that we are asking pertinent questions about that.
It would also be legitimate to ask the Scottish Government for a response on the subject of support that is provided via social services or health boards. We should ask about its awareness of the situation and what it might be able to do about using communication budgets to meet communication needs, rather than finding the money from care budgets. That might be the Scottish Government’s responsibility.
So, there are two lines of questioning that we need to pursue. It would be useful to hear the responses. Do members have any other ideas?
I agree. Perhaps we should make our colleagues on the Health and Sport Committee aware of those issues, too; I think that that would be the relevant committee.
That is a fair point. We should inform that committee, which might have this issue in its programme for future consideration. Thank you for that.
12:25 Meeting continued in private until 12:43.Previous
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