Access to Health and Social Care Services in the UK for Disabled People

This essay discusses the inequitable access to health and social care services in the UK for disabled people. It explores the factors that contribute to this issue, such as changes in laws, low income, gender inequality, lack of awareness, physical barriers, transportation, and affordability. The essay also highlights the barriers faced by the disabled population in accessing healthcare, including long waiting lists, limited knowledge, and high costs of medication.

Introduction to
Health and Social Care

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Access to health and social care services in the UK is not equitable for disable people.............1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Health and social care refers to the medical services that are available from hospitals,
clinics and related establishments in a country. It involves entire healthcare provision
infrastructure which treats and cures to vulnerable people particularly to community. It plays
vital function for population with complex disabilities such as people with deaf blind so to
provide them adequate treatment promptly to live healthy as well as independent livings
(Rotarou and Sakellariou, 2017). The aim of the essay is to learn about factors that results in
inequitable access to services of medical and care in UK. For this, selected topic is “Access to
health and social care services in the UK is not equitable for disable people”.
MAIN BODY
Access to health and social care services in the UK is not equitable for disable people
In accordance to Fortune, Madden and Almborg (2018), health and social care can be
termed to infrastructure and services that are offered by medical organisations including
hospitals, health centres, clinics, dispensaries and so on in community. It combines dimensions
of biology, ethics, legislation addition to nutrition. The word access to health and social care is
defined to well-timed usage of personal services to succeed effective outcomes on issues related
to health. It needs three stages that are gaining entry in health care system, accessing place
wherein services related to health care are provides and finding suitable provider of social care
that can be trusted by patients as well as communicate properly through listening the problem.
Facilitating access is related to assisting population in commanding suitable health care
resources for the purpose of preserving together with improving their conditions of health. In
UK, concept of healthcare service is generic word that refers to entire healthcare provision
infrastructure addition to private sector which performs to provide quality treatment to all
citizens. If social care services are available as well as there is adequate supply then opportunity
for obtaining health care occurs that leads to allowing population to have access for health
relates services.
Atlantic (2017) defines disability as a person facing mental or physical impairment that
causes substantial along with long term adverse impacts on their potential to carry out day to
day practices or operations in normal manner. In other words, definition of disability includes
wider range of sensory, physical, mental and so on impairments such as particular learning
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complexities like dyslexia, chronic health condition and mental health difficulty. In a survey, it
is found that there are around 14.1 million of population within UK that have disability, in
which around 8% are children, 45% are pension age population as well as 19% are working age
people. The problem of disability is common in the nation. In the country, there is solid
evidence and long standing inequalities on context to access to health and social care services
for individual with disability faces unmet needs addition to health results. It is analysed that the
needs and requirements of the population are not recognised and understood because of which
they generally experiences certain number of barriers for attaining equitable access to
healthcare.
Within UK, changes in laws are generating intense pressure of health and social care
organisation to examine and adapt services for the purpose of ensuring equitable access of all
related services of health and society. Nevertheless, in a research, it is acknowledge that in
multiple healthcare systems one of group that is population with disability experiences poorer
health and huge barriers to access suitable services. Rotarou and Sakellariou (2017) focuses that
population with disabilities face financial, attitudinal as well as structural barriers at the time
they seek assess for healthcare. In UK, disable people feels that their requirements and needs are
not properly understood or heard. Due to pre existing situations, they are considered as low
priority patients that are compounded with unequal access for required services to treat their
health and start working like normal people. These people generally have huge needs for
healthcare because of which they requires accessible healthcare services than normal or general
population groups.
Connections among disability, gender and socio economic situation also affects access
for disable population for healthcare services. The views of Abbing (2016) reflects that
healthcare accessible is mediated through kind of healthcare provider that are interceded by
income. In UK, population with disability are excluded from their occupation in the industry as
well as have higher costs to live daily, for example, enhancement in heating prices when more
spendings are made at house or paying for some tool and equipment. It is analysed that the
population group cannot afford payments of private hospitals for medication. Moreover, low
income is one of element that impacts distribution of accessibility for healthcare access in
multiple kinds including reduces ability for making payments for treatments, decreased access to
adequate transportation and so on.
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Gender inequality is other factor that creates unequal access of healthcare services within
United Kingdom. Women or females with disability faces more issues of unmet healthcare
requirements than others in the country (Barber, 2018). For instance, around 7.2 times more
proportion of women have unmet needs related to healthcare services as the cost, against men
with disabilities are nearby four times that costs huge for prescribed medicines. This type of
gender difference is major reason for existence of unequal accessibility of health and social care
in UK. Moreover, healthcare systems lacks recognisability of additional obstacles which women
faces while seeking services for treating their health. Major cause of the barrier is because of
lower income addition to higher caring responsibilities against men.
Accessibility to comprehensive services of health and social care is considered as
prominent to maintain desired level of health within all kinds of population groups.
Nevertheless, evolution of roadblock which restricts disable population to have equal access to
medical service. In this, another barrier that is experiences by disable people is lack of
awareness about healthcare services. People with disability are more than thrice as probable to
report searching providers of healthcare skills inadequate for meeting the requirements, five
time reports being treated in bad manner and approx twice says being denied (Magnusson and
Bickenbach, 2020). Within UK, due to inadequate education level, disable people fails to have
proper information related to which service they should access, when to access and how to
attain. In the nation, people with disability are not familiar about available healthcare services
for them which leads to becoming roadblock in accessing healthcare services.
Transportation and affordability of healthcare services are also considered as main
reasons for which population with disability fails to receive much required services connected
with health. In UK, transportation barriers are also cited as barriers for disable people to access
required healthcare. Transportation is termed to movement of people from one place to other
through suitable modes such as air, water, land and hence forth (Kelly and Byrne, 2018). The
barrier results in delayed care, misses medication use, missed appointments and so on that
implies poorer management of disabilities and hence, inequitable access to healthcare services.
In United Kingdom, just over half of population of disability fails to afford healthcare services
access in comparison to about third of disable population. Furthermore, the population
experiences complexities in accessing requires services of health which is result of lack of
transportation, inadequate training and inaccessible buildings.
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There are some physical barriers that leads to uneven access of services for population
that is disable. Physical barriers are said to structural obstacles within man-made as well as
natural environment which blocks mobility for access to population with some issues
(Dickinson, 2017). In case of disable population, inaccessible medical tools, narrow doorways,
inaccessible parking areas, poor signage, uneven access for building including health centres
and hospitals generates road blocks for disable people for facilities of healthcare in UK. For
instance, population with mobility complexities are generally unable to access equipments such
as cervical cancer screening or others due to examination desks lacks height adjustable together
with mammography tools accommodates to people that have potentials to stand.
CONCLUSION
From the presented information, it have been concluded that there is huge demand of
health and social care services among all groups including disable population. All people have
right for accessing requires services from organisations that provide health and social services.
Disability is delineated as the interaction among people with health situation (including down
syndrome, depression and so on) and factors (comprising inaccessible transportation, limited
social support, negative attitudes and many more). The factors or roadblocks that results in
inequitable accessible of health and social care services are changes in laws, ow income, gender
inequality, lack of awareness, physical barriers, transportation and affordability. Disability
group reports worse cases for access to services as long waiting list, limited knowledge and high
cost of mediation being the main issues.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Abbing, H. R., 2016. Health, healthcare and ageing populations in Europe, a human rights
challenge for European health systems. European journal of health law. 23(5). pp.435-
452.
Barber, W., 2018. Inclusive and accessible physical education: rethinking ability and disability
in pre-service teacher education. Sport, Education and Society. 23(6). pp.520-532.
Dickinson, H., 2017. Individual funding systems: What works?. Evidence Base: A journal of
evidence reviews in key policy areas. 2017(3). pp.1-19.
Fortune, N., Madden, R. and Almborg, A.H., 2018. Use of a new international classification of
health interventions for capturing information on health interventions relevant to people
with disabilities. International journal of environmental research and public health.
15(1). p.145.
Kelly, B. and Byrne, B. eds., 2018. Valuing Disabled Children and Young People: Research,
policy, and practice. Routledge.
Magnusson, L. and Bickenbach, J., 2020. Access to human rights for persons using prosthetic
and orthotic assistive devices in Sierra Leone. Disability and Rehabilitation. 42(8).
pp.1093-1100.
Rotarou, E. S. and Sakellariou, D., 2017. Inequalities in access to health care for people with
disabilities in Chile: the limits of universal health coverage. Critical Public Health.
27(5). pp.604-616.
Rotarou, E. S. and Sakellariou, D., 2017. Neoliberal reforms in health systems and the
construction of long-lasting inequalities in health care: A case study from Chile. Health
Policy. 121(5). pp.495-503.
Online:
Atlantic. 2017. The Meaning of “Access” to Healthcare. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/finance/meaning-access-healthcare>
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