Access inequalities addressed by audit

The Disability Discrimination Act (1995) protects disabled people from discrimination in access to services, facilities and goods as well as in education and employment. All hospitals have an inherent duty to enable access to services but this will now be enshrined in law. As the health sector has most contact with disability, it may be expected that most hospitals would already be in a good position to comply with the Act, especially one treating many patients with disability. However we identified many problems in a rehabilitation hospital setting by means of a simple access audit in March 2004. Recommendations were set out and by March 2005 considerable improvements had been made costing Pound 100,000. Although many necessary changes will be expensive, not all problems identified require costly correction. Many simply involve a change in staff attitudes and practices. We recommend that all hospitals start to identify the changes needed under the Act by means of a simple access audit that can be carried out by hospital staff with no specialist equipment.