Select committee: Women and Equalities Committee
Recommendation 10
Fourth report: Unequal impact? Coronavirus, disability and access to services: full Report
Published 22 Dec 2020
Paragraph 68
Addressed to Government Equalities Office
Women and Equalities Committee Unequal impact? Coronavirus, disability and access to services All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The widespread adoption of continuous facemask wearing in health and social care settings has made effective communication impossible for patients and healthcare professionals who lip-read, and much more difficult for Deaf people who use British Sign Language and people with disabilities which mean they are more reliant on facial expressions for communication. We therefore strongly welcome the development of medically approved transparent facemasks and the Government’s procurement of 250,000 pieces for distribution in the NHS and to social care providers. This is a good first step towards fully meeting the Equality Act’s Public Sector Equality Duty and reasonable adjustment obligations to disabled people, by ensuring that clear facemasks are readily accessible across the whole health and social care system, based on need. We are not, however, aware of any analysis of the adequacy of 250,000 masks to meet current or ongoing needs. We ask that the Department of Health and Social Care update us, in its response to this Report, on: progress in distributing clear face masks to NHS Trusts; the effectiveness of the pilot system to distribute the masks to social care providers through Local Resilience Forums; its assessment of the level of need for clear facemasks across health and social care services; and its plans for further procurement and distribution.
From: Women and Equalities Committee, Fourth report: Unequal impact? Coronavirus, disability and access to services: full Report (HC 1050), paragraph 68, 22 December 2020
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 14 April 2021.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government welcomes the Committee's report and sets out measures taken during the pandemic, while declining some recommendations and committing to publish the National Strategy for Disabled People in Spring 2021.
- On a statutory Code of Practice on the Public Sector Equality Duty, the government says it "does not see any compelling need to depart from the normal preference of its predecessors against additional statutory codes of practice".
- On publishing assessments of disabled people's food needs, it says that, "in line with the practice of successive administrations", it "does not routinely publish EIAs".
- On the SEND review, the Department for Education "intends to publish proposals for consultation in the spring of 2021", saying the pandemic "has unavoidably delayed" the review.
- On an independent inquiry and social care reform, it says there will be "opportunities to look back" at COVID-19 but is "focused entirely" on the response for now, and will "bring forward proposals this year" on adult social care.