The Guardian view on listening to people with learning disabilities: a matter of life and death | Editorial
“I know from experience they wouldn’t have valued my life,” she says, in a new report on the treatment of people with learning disabilities during the crisis.
Key points
- The 1.5 million people in the UK with learning disabilities, and their families, had reason for concern.
- The lessons have yet to be absorbed The fear that so many felt as the death toll rose during the Covid pandemic was magnified for Fiona Walker.
- As is now well established, the pandemic did not create inequalities; it exposed and intensified them.
Death rates in England were four to six times higher than average for people with learning disabilities.
People with learning disabilities die on average 19.5 years earlier than people without, and deaths are almost twice as likely to be classed as avoidable.
Additional details
- The Covid pandemic shed an unforgiving light on health and social care inequalities.
How this summary was made: extractive summary — built from the sources' own reporting. It is drawn only from the reporting of the sources listed below — read the originals for full detail. How we summarize →
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