People with learning disabilities ‘left behind’ during pandemic

A REVIEW into why people with learning disabilities have been “left behind at every stage” during the Covid-19 crisis should be completed post pandemic, a leading charity said today.

Yesterday the Government confirmed people with learning disabilities will be next in line to receive the Covid vaccine after the group was missed off the priority list despite statistics showing they die at six times the rate of the wider population with the virus.

It followed a campaign by Jo Whiley whose younger sister Francis, 53, has the rare Cri du Chat genetic syndrome and was admitted to hospital after an outbreak in her Northamptonshire care home.

The BBC DJ, 55, warned that the disabled risk becoming “forgotten” victims of the pandemic and said she had been offered the vaccine before her sister, who survived the virus but has been left with complications.

Jackie O’Sullivan, Mencap’s executive director of advocacy, said the pandemic had had a “severe” effect on the estimated 1.5million people with a learning disability in the UK.

She added that people with learning disabilities and their carers were “last in the queue” for PPE, testing and then the vaccine. “They were left behind at every stage. That is definitely something we would like to bring out in a post pandemic review.”

It comes as a new study today revealed nearly two-thirds of disabled people are experiencing chronic loneliness during lockdown. The research by charity Sense said cases of loneliness have jumped by a quarter in the past year.

Sense chief executive Richard Kramer said: “The Government must recognise the severe impact the pandemic is having on disabled people.”