Addressing Inequality: Disability in Health and Social Care Practice

This essay explores the pervasive issue of disability and its profound impact on health and social care within the United Kingdom. It highlights the various inequalities faced by individuals with disabilities, including limited access to education, employment, and healthcare, which significantly affect their overall well-being. The essay delves into the critical disability theory, emphasizing the importance of analyzing disability from historical, cultural, and social perspectives to promote inclusivity. It further discusses health inequalities, avoidable systematic differences in health outcomes among different population groups, and emphasizes the need for person-centered care to foster health and well-being for people with disabilities. The essay also examines relevant health and social care policies and legislation, such as the Equality Act 2010 and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which aim to protect disabled individuals from discrimination and promote equality. Furthermore, it underscores the importance of human rights and safeguarding measures in ensuring that people with disabilities are treated with dignity and respect, empowering them to make their own choices and live independently. The essay concludes by emphasizing the need for continued efforts to promote inclusive practices, address inequalities, and uphold the rights of individuals with disabilities in health and social care.

Understanding health and
social care practice essay

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Disability refers to a condition of body or mind also known as an impairment that
restricts an individual to perform various activities. This may include activity limitations along
with interaction within the world around them. This can create difficulty for individuals and
performing and participating in different activities which creates low self-esteem and reduces
morale of individuals with a disability. There are a large number of the population who has a
disability within the United Kingdom which may include physical or mental impairment that can
lead to creating a high long-term negative impact on the ability to perform the normal daily
activity. According to family resources survey 2018-19, there are about 14.1 million people
within the United Kingdom who have reported to having a disability (Wang et. al., (2019)). This
include a consisting of 8% of child population, 19% of the working population, along with 45%
of older people with pension age population. There is high impact of inequality in delivering
proper effective living and getting healthcare services which may include healthy food,
education, income and many more. These are the some of the inequality which can be highly
effective to delivery better and more effective healthcare services to people with disability. There
is need for inclusion practices within health care services that can be effective to provide a
positive outcome to people with disability (Leite et. al., (2021)).
MAIN BODY
Disability can defined as the condition in which an individual is not able to perform
various type of activity (Hollins et. al., (2019)). There are also not able to participate in society to
perform some specific type of activity that need proper inclusion and proper health. In this,
people may face lower self-esteem and depression and various other mental health. There is need
to ensure that every individual should get included and should participate to perform various type
of activity to the world around them. This can be helpful and enable them to a stay positive and
live their life with better quality.
Critical disability theory refers to the diverse multi-disciplinary set of theoretical
approaches (El-Saadani et. al., (2019)). This is the disability theory that can help to analyse
disability as a historical cultural, social relative along with political phenomenon. This refers to a
methodology that includes orientation of field of philosophy. It may include excluding mental
impairment along with social norms which can involve particular attributes as impairment.

Critical disability theory refers to intentionally political which have the objective to support
transformation of society which can enable disabled people to participate in diversity with equal
participation and can get full integrated within their community. Health inequality refers to
avoidable systematic and unfair differences in health between different group of people. This
may include various factor like education, social factor, employment status, income level,
ethnicity, gender and many more. This can lead to create a negative impact on health
distribution. This can also lead to create inequality with in people to access to health care
services and getting proper health care services (Wiseman et. al., (2020)).
There are a large number of the population who faces inequality and their life. In this, an
individual with a disability may experience lower employment rate, lower education level, poor
health than people without disabilities, few household resources and many more. These are some
of the inequality which are generally faced by people with disability in life. This can create need
that impacts on their health and social care practice. There is a need for better inclusion that can
enable people with disability to get involved in different activity and can enable them to get
motivated and perform well to improve their quality of life for people with disabilities (Angelini
et. al., (2020)).
There are various inequality that can cause due to the presence of disability within any
individual. This may include lower education level, lower employment rate, fewer household
resources and many more. It can be easily observed that there are a large number of the
population who have a disability are not able to get employment (Chen et. al., (2019)). They
need to perform their own business. There are very less organizations or companies that provide
support by hiring people with disability. Generally, a company doesn't like to hire or provide
employment to people with disability because it may lead to create a negative impact on their
productivity. This can also lead to create a high negative impact in performance and higher
productivity. People with disability can face difficulty in performing various activities where
company production can get impacted and lead to create loss for the organization in their profit
(Martinez-Calderon et. al., (2018)).
There is a need for the inclusion of disabled people in society and community. Here,
person-centered care for the people can be effective and can help to implement health and well-
being (Anomsari et. al., (2020)). Practicing inclusion, it can also enable healthcare professionals
to take care of every individual with a disability by implementing and including them to perform

activity and participate in the community and society. This can be effective and can influence
and allow to live effectively with improved quality of life.
There are various negative impacts of disability which include poorer overall health, less
access to adequate healthcare and many more. These are some of the negative impacts to people
with disability. There are high negative impacts of inequality due to disability. This may high a
negative impact on their chances to get the opportunity for job (Bhui et. al., (2018)). This may
create difficulty for the organization to hire such type of people who are facing some specific
type of disability. This may create a negative impact on production and productivity. People with
disability are having low self-esteem and may face withdrawal from society where they think
that they are not included in society while performing the different activities. In this, there is
need to ensure that people with disability should also be included in society and they may get
some specific support and care. This can enable them to feel comfortable and influence them to
participate in a different activity in which they are easily capable. This can enable them to
participate and feel better and included within the society and community.
There are different types of focus on health and social care policy and legislation that can
enable and support people with diversity to live effectively without facing any type of inequality
and discrimination (Islam et. al., (2018)). There are different policies and legislation made by the
government which can be effective and can support people be disabilities to get equality. In this,
there are some legislation and policy which also support people with disability to get better
health and social care services. This can enable them to receive the quality of healthcare services
for improving their health.
Equality act 2010 includes any individual who have a physical or mental impairment and
has a substantial or long-term negative effect on their ability to perform normal daily activity.
They should get protected by applying this disability act and help in improving and providing
better inclusion to people in their healthcare services.
Disability Discrimination Act 1995 within UK which have the legislation to protect
disabled people against a different type of forms of discrimination (Yadav, (2019)). There are
some of the policy and legislation which can be highly effective but can help and support people
with disability to get rid of inequality and improve their quality of life. There are the high
negative impact of creating discrimination and inequality with people with disability. This may
lead to lower their self-esteem and lower their quality of life. There is need to effectively

implement such type of legislation that can be highly effective and can provide better support to
people with disability. This can influence them to effectively participate in different activity
around them and can equally participate and include in it with better impact. This can enable
them to feel comfortable and included in society (McCauley, (2020)).
There is also need to take care about human rights which should be taken in consideration
for improving better equality and reducing the risk of discrimination. Human Rights can also
enable people with disability to get the opportunity for inclusion within society and avoid any
risk of discrimination.
Safeguarding is also effective to protect any type of harm, neglect, or discrimination towards
people with disability. This can be effective and can help to reduce any type of abuse from
happening and provide protection to people with disability. This can also enable people to get
independent and make their own choices that can enable them to feel empowered and provide
protection against any type of discrimination (Kanbur, (2021)).
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that there are a large number of the
population who face disability within United Kingdom. In this, it may lead to create various
inequality which includes the lower opportunity for job, education and many more. There are
various type of inequality that can have high negative impact on individual health and their well-
being. In this essay, there is a discussion about the promotion of inclusive practices which can be
effective for a disabled person. This can enable them to identify challenges that are faced by
them. There is also a discussion about disability group focusing on health and social care policy
and legislation. There is also discussion about people with disability through making policy and
legislation that can support equality and diversity in health and social care by including
safeguarding and human rights.

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