Facilities for the Disabled. Is it really that hard?

This was left as a comment by Chris Balchin, but we have decided to make it a full post again.

May I just take this opportunity to say the following:

I would just like to say that I've long been aware of the phrase

'It's the Squeaky door that gets the oil'.

For those of you who have had to endure the lack of adequate facilities in The Lancaster Unit, The Orchard and the appalling disregard to your needs Trust wide, [the same experiences and worse that I too have experienced] I offer my apologies for squeaking too quietly, and possibly too timidly for too long.

I let you down.

But I care about you. I respect you, your dignity and relative independence.
However, I promise you and all future users of The Orchard and wider Trust that as long as I am able, I will not let go until you have facilities that at least match those of the new build, The Harbour, and see to it that attitudes are changed towards your needs and disadvantages. The Trust owes you that.
You are no less important in Burnley, Ormskirk, Lancaster or any part of Lancashire, than any patient being sent to the modern facility in Blackpool; when it opens of course.
This blog is a literal God send, facilitating serious amplification to my squeak and for that and their indefatigable determination to roar for those who can't or feel unable to even squeak for themselves, I give my heart felt thanks to the team.

Seriously -

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU

To Ms Tierney Moore, Chief Executive of Lancashire Care I would ask this,

Why are individual voices ignored, regardless of the gravity of the message?
My message has been voiced since my time as an inpatient at the worst period of my mental ill health, but I was made to feel from the outset like a complete nuisance and an irritation.
And how can it be that the most senior member of the build project team for the £100,000 plus refurbished Lancaster Unit say he was "unaware" of the absence of any facilities for disabled people, and that "...it must have been an oversight".
Only to follow that up with an identical situation at the £1.2 million refurbished Orchard, even though I attended the Open Information Day prior to work on the Orchard refurbishment, specifically to advise of the situation in order to "...prevent the same issue reoccurring at The Orchard".

I deserve a transparent and honest answer to these points, as do the other service users and the financiers.

Chris

We're fighting for the Women but what about Disability?

This post was left as a comment on our Blog, but I am moving and making it a full post as it's important.  I would like to thank Chris Balchin for adding this and also for being strong enough to use their own name, something that not many can or will do.


From the outset I can openly state my name.  I am Chris (Christopher) Balchin. My LCFT credentials you will find in my comment earlier in this blog.

I am so grateful for this latest posting!

It is of great benefit to me personally in my one man campaign for Justice for disabled people in The former Lancaster Unit, at its replacement The Orchard, and around attitudes to disabled people's experience within the Trust generally.  My campaign has received warm words but little success since 2010 when I was an inpatient suffering the effects of a serious breakdown.

I today met with genuinely concerned senior managers in the Trust. These managers were made aware of my concerns for the first time today and were genuinely shocked at my stories. I believe they are taking this and other issues very seriously indeed.

It had not occurred to me that the Trust needed to take Due Regard for Disability when earlier mentioned, but your wording opened my eyes to the obvious. 

All I've heard from project managers and the Architect was that Regulations are different for a refurbishment to that of a new build.  Other management just referred to cost implications.  I continually questioned the legitimacy of those comments where no facilities are provided at all, or where facilities are so lacking that there might as well be none.

The room lauded to me as 'The Disabled Room' is named such for one reason and one reason only - it has a larger floor area. Further, this Disabled Room is on the Men's Wing.  I received no reply when I asked where the Women's Disabled Room was.

If those people that I have previously spoken to thought I would go away, be assured I never would, but the stress of their inaction and dismissive behaviour might have caused a relapse in my health forcing me back to the inadequate conditions of the Orchard. I would not have coped with that though so would not have likely survived.

However, though my only technology is a phone, I see it can be so beneficial in bringing justice to the oppressed.  It is amazing what Public Knowledge of a situation can do.

Well Chris, we do hope that the Trust staff who we know are reading our blog, look into your concerns properly and start taking issues of potential discrimination seriously.