How many "disabled confident" job vacancies in your area ?
21 - in my area - covering a population of around 100,000
And that includes warehouse and shop jobs.. both involve heavy lifting and being on your feet for most of the day
That's according to the local Job Centre
Not very many
Disabled Confident means :
- the employer is committed to employing disabled people.
- you’ll be guaranteed an interview if you meet the basic conditions for the job
Which is totally meaningless
Comments
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Finding suitable employment for people with disabilities, particularly in small towns or rural areas, is incredibly difficult. Many jobs, like those in warehouses or retail, require heavy lifting or long hours on your feet, which aren’t always feasible for disabled people. Without more accessible job options that allow disabled individuals a chance to progress in employment, it’s hard to see a way forward.
Smaller companies (not all) may view disabled employees as a liability, concerned about sick days or medical appointments disrupting productivity, especially with the recent changes to Statutory Sick Pay. I fear that many will be deemed fit to work, but the reality is that genuinely "disabled-friendly" jobs are rare. Even if vacancies exist, securing a job is one thing, but maintaining it while managing health issues is quite another, and not many companies will be willing to take that risk.
The reality is that a world where the government expects all employers to warmly welcome disabled individuals into their workforce simply doesn’t exist.
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This is so true and one that has me fuming. A few years ago, when my son was 18, a council job came up for someone to work in the mail room.
I am pretty certain my son could do a job like that. He can read and has no physical disability.
He got an interview as there's a guaranteed interview scheme with the council.
But he did not get the job. It just so happens, my hubby works for the council and knew the people who interviewed my son. So he was able to ask how our son had done at interview.
Not well at all. Because they had made NO allowance whatsoever for his comprehensiom problem.
Wait til you hear this though: they offered the job to someone else who turned it down. Rather than giving our son a trial, it went out to re-interview with "previous applicants need not apply"
Had they given him a trial and he'd been unable to do it, fair.
But they based their impression on his weakest area - verbal comprehension and i doubt he needed that skill sorting and delivering mail internally.
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And the government know the reality, that's the hard part to swallow.
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I find disability confident leader is a load of BS. I worked for an NHS trust that had that title, and they didn't care about making any reasonable adjustments. I had to fight for everything. My department kept saying reasonable adjustments are unfair to those without a disability… I even got my union rep and HR involved but didn't help. I went to the inclusion leader too for my trust who was as useless as a toilet brush. Even Occupational health made a report recommending reasonable adjustments, but they said it wasn't down to them if my department doesn't want to implement them. The reasonable adjustments were literally a break when I needed a breather due to my mental health and autism and other simple adjustments. How hard was it to implement that for christ sake. Because I was part-time, my manager said I wasn't legally entitled to a break, so that was it. Also, I kept getting signed off and they would hassle me when I was off with depression/stress. Glad I left in the end, I stuck it out for 4 years.
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Another factor, beyond that of employers being willing to employ people with disabilities, is the reaction of the disabled person's colleagues.
I speak from bitter experience where my employer was happy (well, perhaps not happy but willing) to make adjustments recommended by Occupational Health specialist. Perhaps this was because there was zero direct finance implication to them, just some minor workload and desk position adjustments.
Colleagues, on the other hand, could only see 'special treatment' for me, discrimination against themselves, and me being 'selfish' by not being able to participate in some work tasks.
It was a very far from pleasant existence, dreading going in every day to face direct, and indirect, comments aimed at me/my limitations due to disability.
Whinging, whining, bitching, and nastiness from colleagues as a result of reasonable adjustments took me to my lowest point ever, and I've regularly known lowness.
A part of me really hopes they have not thought this through.
If they have thought it through, they are, imo, sadistic/psychopathic and should have zero control over the lives of others.
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OMG!! So, so spot on… Well said. This is absolutely true in my case. My whole work life changed the moment I declared my disability…I was no longer needed. Work retention became impossible.
And to top it off, my employer proudly calls themselves a “Disability Confident” employer!-What a joke 🤷🏻♂️1 -
The ‘Disability Confident’ badge is often touted as a symbol of workplace inclusivity, but my own experience tells a different story. I’d spent three decades building my career with my company, everything running smoothly, until I was diagnosed with an incurable chronic illness. That’s when things began to unravel.
At first, there were the obligatory “sorry to hear that” remarks, but they were quickly followed by subtle questions like, “Are you thinking about early retirement?” It didn’t take long to recognise the unspoken concern. How would my illness affect the company and my clients?
Things only got harder after I spent several weeks in hospital fighting for my life. When I returned to work, I found that the office I had worked in for 25 years was no longer mine. My files were dumped onto a desk, and I was moved into a shared office. The official explanation? A colleague needed to “keep an eye on me.” In reality, it felt like a calculated move to make me as uncomfortable as possible. They might as well have placed my desk in the car park.
That time was an incredibly dark period of my life. In the space of nineteen months, I lost my 59-year-old husband (we had been together for 43 years) just six weeks after he was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumour. I spent weeks fighting for my own life, only to return to work and find myself fighting again, this time to keep the career I had dedicated decades to. That all happened four years ago. I’m still with the company, back in my own office, and things have settled, but my rights were hard-won.
I’ve written to Liz Kendall about my personal experience because she needs to understand what it truly feels like to be pushed aside due to disability or chronic illness. Her narrative of how employers view the sick and disabled certainly doesn’t reflect my lived reality.
The harsh truth is that many employers (not all) don’t want the sick and disabled in their workforce, they see us as a liability, not an asset. No matter how much we contribute or how hard we fight to stay in work, the cold reality is that, for too many companies, our health is more of a burden than a value to the company.
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I am so sorry to hear of your experience, mine was sadly very similar and I was dismissed because of ill health and treated appallingly two years ago. And mine was in the NHS and from nursing colleagues who are supposed to be the 'caring' profession. My situation took I would say a slightly sinister turn in that my boss shared my personal health information with everybody (including porters for instance who asked me about it/told me what had been said). Worse though, it's affected my ability to get healthcare now. I'm still pondering on what I can do about that but I don't think there really is anything.
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A disabled person, according to DWP, looks something like this -
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@Santosha12 Thank you.
Likewise, I am really sorry to hear about your experience which sounds hellish.
I'm confident you would have redress should you wish to pursue their major breach of confidentiality. And, I'd admire you greatly if do decide to pursue it.
I think what happens to us, working disabled people, is we get so worn down by having to commit/work at 150% it burns us out. As a result our self-care, and self-esteem, take a proper battering.
I'm sure none, absolutely none, of this has been factored into Kendall's Grand Plan For The Feckless Disabled.
As an aside, my employer was also a large employer. I resigned, they asked me to reconsider and offered me the opportunity of early retiral on health grounds, which I took. On reflection, they may have been concerned I would litigate given the many issues that drove me to resign?
I can only imagine smaller workplaces might be better/colleagues more understanding?
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3 population of 26K
But Ive already worked for one of them and they messed up my reasonable adjustments to the point my condition got much worse. I dont set much store by "disabled confident".0 -
Hi @MW123,
Thank you for sharing such a deeply personal and insightful account of your workplace challenges. Reading your experience struck a chord with me because it mirrors much of what I’ve been through over the past three years since facing multiple serious health issues, hospitalisations, and the constant battle to remain in the workforce.I am truly sorry for the loss of your husband, especially in the midst of your own health struggles and the professional barriers you’ve had to navigate. As if the challenges of managing a chronic illness weren’t enough, dealing with an employer that fails to provide meaningful support only adds to the burden.
Your comments about the Disability Confident Employer badge resonate strongly with me. My employer is an NHS Trust,an organisation that should be setting the standard for inclusivity and accessibility. Yet, my experience has shown the exact opposite. Despite openly declaring my disabilities, I’ve repeatedly faced obstacles in accessing even the most basic workplace support.What’s been even more disheartening is encountering barriers within services that are supposedly designed to help disabled people re-enter the workforce. The Thrive into Work scheme in the West Midlands, for instance, assessed me as too disabled to receive their support. The irony is unbearable….being denied help because my disabilities are deemed too severe, while simultaneously being told by Occupational Health that I don’t meet the ill-health retirement criteria because I haven’t exhausted all treatment options. Yet, what’s not understood are those very treatments remain out of reach due to the endless NHS waiting lists and bureaucratic red tape. It’s a vicious cycle, and as you rightly pointed out, these delays often push people into permanent, irreversible disability when timely intervention could have made a real difference in my case.Unfortunately, I’m now at the end of my tether as I approach the final stages of my employer’s long-term sickness absence process. HR policies are being triggered, and there is a real possibility that I may be terminated on the grounds of ill health. While I do have a supportive trade union representative advocating for me, I am completely exhausted by this ordeal and feel like I’ve exhausted every possible option available to me.Even if I somehow managed to return to work, I know deep down that I wouldn’t last long. My physical, sensory, and mental health challenges have deteriorated to the point where I now struggle to get through even the most basic activities of daily living….let alone sustain a job. The brutal reality is that, by all employer standards, I now meet every definition of being a liability rather than an asset.Like you, I have taken part in the current Green Paper consultation, offering a detailed account of my lived experience and my thoughts on the proposed reforms. However, given the way this so-called “consultation” has been structured, I can’t shake the feeling that it’s more of a tick-box exercise than a genuine effort to protect the rights of disabled individuals. But I’ll leave that discussion for our main thread.On a positive note, I am truly glad to hear that you have managed to hold onto your job and reclaim your place in the workplace. I have no doubt that the resilience you’ve built through these battles now enables you to support and advise others like me, who are still fighting to overcome the same injustices. Thank you for sharing your story…it serves as both a reality check and a source of encouragement.Wishing you all the very best😊1
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