Addressing barriers: disabled rights and the implications for nursing of the social construct of disability

Drawing upon the writings of disabled people, this paper explores some of the issues which nurses working with disabled people are trying to address, in particular the barriers model of disability. Traditionally disability has been regarded as a personal tragedy afflicting the individual, hence the response to disability has been via the charity, health and welfare systems. Disabled people over the past two decades have substantially challenged this view of disability and the responses it prompts, arguing that disability is created by social barriers and barriers in the built environment. This requires a different response. Nurses working with disabled people, such as learning disability nurses, have struggled to develop more appropriate responses to disability, for example by developing working alliances with people with learning difficulties in order to both promote health and address disabling barriers. The issues these nurses face and some of the lessons disabled people have taught them are relevant to the nursing profession's wider struggle to shed its medical and dependency image.