Super-Twat

[rafletcher]

I suspect the insurance needs drive the requirements, not the organisers or the venue.

[Polar Bear]

It’s easier and simpler to turn people away than it is to do proper risk assessments of each possible user group. I suspect in some cases there’s an account in the background who has done a cost benefit analysis and decided that in the most part, minority potential high risk users will just roll over. In other cases it’ll just be laziness or disinterest by the operator. I don’t think it’ll be active disabilist rather just lack of thought, although I’m sure there are some arseholes out there.

the assessment of risk based upon appearance is frankly ridiculous.  Somebody might have a weak heart and a bit of strenuous activity may be fatal but by appearance there is no way of telling.

[jsabine]

The article seems to suggest the X-ray view has changed in recent years and people with Down Syndrome are not more at risk if they have no external symptoms.

Aye, the Down Syndrome Association factsheet suggests that precautionary X-rays have little or no predictive diagnostic value, but that the most minor of physical symptoms should be treated as a warning sign.

Meantime, British Gymnastics seems to be taking a harder line - the 2012 guidance I first found says that if there are physical symptoms, participation in some activities may be OK, but the 2021 guidance says participation is banned if any symptoms are shown. Examination by doctor or physio required.

As you say, risk assessing to exclude.

[Beardy]

It’s easier and simpler to turn people away than it is to do proper risk assessments of each possible user group. I suspect in some cases there’s an account in the background who has done a cost benefit analysis and decided that in the most part, minority potential high risk users will just roll over. In other cases it’ll just be laziness or disinterest by the operator. I don’t think it’ll be active disabilist rather just lack of thought, although I’m sure there are some arseholes out there.

the assessment of risk based upon appearance is frankly ridiculous.  Somebody might have a weak heart and a bit of strenuous activity may be fatal but by appearance there is no way of telling.

To be fair, risk assessment is more an art than a science, in whatever field you might be operating. If any genuine risk assessment is being carried out in amusement ‘rides’ it is unlikely that it will be being constantly and intelligently applied by the operators of said rides. Minimum wage youths just do as they are told. Occasionally.

The unfortunate truth is that an operator of a ‘ride’ cannot both meet the needs of their insurance providers and the disparate collection of people that present to use their facility. Their, likely inconsistent, attempts at meeting the terms of their insurers AND being totally inclusive towards everyone who presents as participants is likely to be an impossibility.

[barakta]

Well technically the disabled person could sue for disability discrimination which is probably what is needed to force someone to counter sue the insurance companies to stop being such pervasively disablist dicks.

If a medical note is required, the company requiring it should be obliged to fund and arrange said medical note. Stop burdening disabled people with constant extra costs and demands. I guarantee they'd demand less than the fictional GP who will happily keep churning out notes for every single use-case.

It doesn't have to be minimum wage oiks doing risk assessments. My local sports centre has a lot of frontline staff but also duty managers who do the risk assessments. My assessment was polite, respectful and useful. We agreed the main concern was my deafness. I got told how evacuation works and it's rare, and cos I can't hear alarms I agreed to use the disabled changing cubicles which have flashing alerters in them.

I did have to prebook the risk assessment but it was arranged in days and this was clearly on their website for members. Their attitude to disability is very good, if staff don't know a thing, they radio duty manager who arrives or sorts it in minutes and the customer service attitude is exemplary throughout.

We probably also need the government to produce guidance for specific activities to identify what is known to be risky and what isn't. There is guidance for swimming pool providers from Sport England for example which includes common disability things they should be doing. It strikes me that gymnastics, trampolining and those Go Ape style places could do with something similar. But that would require government to give an actual fuck about disabled people living normal lives and not being constantly excluded.

We're being slated by the UN for how we treat disabled people in the UK. We are not the worst in the world, BUT we're being slated cos we were good and have been going backwards for the last 10-14 years thanks to Fucking Tories.

[Polar Bear]

It's easy to be disablist because it's virtually a societal norm just like many believe that the Met Police is institutionally racist or that the Tory party is islamophobic.

Challenging a norm simply because it's normalised in society is very very difficult indeed.  Making life difficult for individuals and groups of persons is in itself in my opinion a confirmation bias and there is always a tenuous reason to back up such positions.   

When I was born it was believed that I would be blind for my entire life.  Certain people in my extended family had a life mapped out for me as an adult living in a home which at that time existed near my home town for blind adults and spending my life tuning pianos.  Why tuning pianos?  Well, blind people could do this.

My Uncle Bob and Aunt Sheila didn't accept this and being childless themselves took me under their wing and helped me grow.  They pushed for the surgery which remarkably gave me some vision, found schools for me that I had to go and board at away from home where I would get the chance to flourish.  Such opportunity was not available in my community.

I have had an unremarkable life by any standards of normality until you compare what I have managed to achieve against the background of your average oik from a large brood in a working class family.  I am not exceptional in any way and would never claim to be so but I was given the opportunity to achieve my potential and not merely my working class "destiny".

As a society we need to do better for everybody imo but rules is rules ...  🤔

As an afterthought:  when you buy a train ticket or a car park ticket there are rules of carriage or parking conditions which include the activity being at your own risk.  It's not difficult for something similar to apply in this scenario.

[Mr Larrington]

Christopher “Chopper” Hope, formerly of the Torygraph and now doing sweet FA as the “Head of Politics and Political Editor” at GBeebies, complains that the BBC has completely abandoned Christian programming this Easter; gets pwned.  Tomorrow’s schedule includes the Easter Sunday service from Canterbury, Pope Frank doing his thing from Rome where the Pope lives and Songs Of Praise.  To the massive surprise of absolutely no-one, Gammon Broadcasting’s Easter Sunday schedule contains no religious programming whatsoever.

Christopher Hope: Super-Twat.

[andrewc]

Matthew Parris wants to cull old people.


https://x.com/doctor_oxford/status/1773967442093486575

[Mr Larrington]

Matthew Parris is 74.  Just sayin’…

[barakta]

Ah yeah, but he's a rich fuck so he wouldn't need to rely on the state for care or support, he'd be able to pay for it quietly and act all smug in the process.

[rogerzilla]

He's always been a thundercnut.  Remember his exhortation to stretch wires across cyclepaths?

[jsabine]

As an afterthought:  when you buy a train ticket or a car park ticket there are rules of carriage or parking conditions which include the activity being at your own risk.  It's not difficult for something similar to apply in this scenario

Excluding liability for death or serious injury. Clients who might prima facie be seen as having limited capacity. Not difficult.

You're a braver man than I.

[toontra]

He's always been a thundercnut.  Remember his exhortation to stretch wires across cyclepaths?

On his R4 "Great Lives" he said he couldn't understand how anyone could find Viv Stanshall funny.  Enough said.

[Polar Bear]

As an afterthought:  when you buy a train ticket or a car park ticket there are rules of carriage or parking conditions which include the activity being at your own risk.  It's not difficult for something similar to apply in this scenario

Excluding liability for death or serious injury. Clients who might prima facie be seen as having limited capacity. Not difficult.

You're a braver man than I.

People take part in all sorts of activities which can in extreme circumstances lead to serious outcomes.   Thing is, somebody with say a heart condition would not be pulled aside and yet vigorous physically activity might be fatal for them. 

I am happy for people to take responsibility for themselves and their lives and their loved ones who might need some extra help navigating the world.

I am not brave but as a disabled person it bugs me that others try to decide what is best for me.  They can choose to do whatever they wish yet feel the need and the right to tell me what I can and cannot do.  I don't think this makes me unique amongst disabled people but also perhaps amongst women, the LGBTQ+ community, people who don't have pink skin, ...

[Mr Larrington]

He's always been a thundercnut.  Remember his exhortation to stretch wires across cyclepaths?

On his R4 "Great Lives" he said he couldn't understand how anyone could find Viv Stanshall funny.  Enough said.

Probably dropped on his head as a child.  More than once.

[barakta]

Excluding liability for death or serious injury. Clients who might prima facie be seen as having limited capacity. Not difficult.

Legal capacity in the UK cannot be a blanket thing, it must be explored on a case by case basis. Assuming a young adult (this man is 19) does not have legal capacity cos he had Down Syndrome would be a potentially unlawful position to take and could be direct discrimination on the grounds of disability.

I agree with Polar Bear about how disabled people are treated. There are certain groups within that; people with learning disabilities and visually impaired people who are particularly made-vulnerable to external randoms deciding they can't be safe and don't know their own mind.

Like I say, I've engaged with reasonable risk assessment done well, so I know it is possible, but many places do it very badly because rejecting disabled people will always have crowds of wellmeaning but possibly disablist "Ah well, but..."...

[jsabine]

Young man with Down Syndrome - assume no capacity - no trampolining - disability discrimination claim.

Young man with Down Syndrome - assume capacity - go trampolining - broken neck and paraplegia - negligence claim.

Rock? Hard place?

If I was writing guidance for the folk on the front desk of a trampoline parlour, I think I'd be encouraging them to err on the side of preserving bodily function ...

Obviously there's a middle way, and I would be disappointed (though, let's face it, not necessarily surprised) if an insurer didn't accept that British Gymnastics membership without caveats was a reasonable proxy risk assessment.

(I'm not being a *total* dick about this. My little brother (well, little? 47 the week before last) has Down's. If anybody offered him a trampolining trip, I'd trust him to say no, because he was told 20 or 30 years ago he had Atlanto-Axial Instability, and despite enjoying swimming he hasn't tried diving since, nor has he joined a rugby club.

There's plenty more I don't trust him about, mind ...)

[barakta]

There is absolutely a happy medium and service providers absolutely have to meet it, that's the law.

The law is anticipatory (in goods and services), which means service providers have to consider how they would include disabled people with different needs in advance of them turning up to use the service.

That could be via a Risk Assessment process, but that should be well published and its purpose made clear and access explained. The process could have different common conditions and categories of impairment e.g. visual impairment and conditions like Down Syndrome. Known risk concerns could be researched and listed to discuss. Document the discussion and agreed outcomes. The process should be made as not-onerous for the disabled person as possible, which includes keeping evidence demands to a minimum and working out if likely-existing evidence or a statement and signing it is sufficient.

If I use a non disabled changing area in my sports centre and missed an evacuation, I'd have no rights to complain or claim on insurance because I agreed I would always use those changing spaces on my PEEP. If I hadn't disclosed my disabilities when it was clear on the registration forms that I would need to and do a PEEP, then I'd also have no rights under insurance etc.

We also need orgs who have no rights to disability info to NOT demand it, I've been topping up a spreadsheet I publish about disability discrimination of all kinds (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1U5w4Zgdz-UgTtTSZaRmGSelTMxbnIptKW7ryUMPD5sM/edit# for anyone bored enough to look). Refusal of entry to everywhere from pubs to leisure places is not uncommon for people with physical and cognitive impairments and often staff just make shit up cos they're badly trained and supported by the organisations' owners.

For everyone with a visible condition like Down syndrome there's going to be others whose condition or impairment is less visible. If there's significant safety risks, then there is a question of whether all new members/visitors should have to have a basic safety/health check to ask specific questions (which is how my sports centre do it, they have a section on the membership form asking about mobility, sight, hearing and other likely impairments).

And given how fucking awful so many organisations are, I know many disabled people don't disclose cos they don't want the hassle and stigmatisation.

[quixoticgeek]

I suspect the insurance needs drive the requirements, not the organisers or the venue.

I'm kinda surprised the trampoline places are still in business. They create a disproportionate amount of injuries.

J

[ElyDave]

I suspect the insurance needs drive the requirements, not the organisers or the venue.

I'm kinda surprised the trampoline places are still in business. They create a disproportionate amount of injuries.

J

Disproportionate to what? Other places where you jump up and down repeatedly, like a mosh pit perhaps?

[quixoticgeek]

I suspect the insurance needs drive the requirements, not the organisers or the venue.

I'm kinda surprised the trampoline places are still in business. They create a disproportionate amount of injuries.

J

Disproportionate to what? Other places where you jump up and down repeatedly, like a mosh pit perhaps?

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39266683

Disproportionate for their size and economic impact.

J

[jsabine]

That report is from 2017, of course.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Right at the top of the year list goes Sunak for

The prime minister has said people should not be criminalised "for stating simple facts on biology", as he backed JK Rowling in her criticism of new hate crime laws.

[toontra]

I suspect the insurance needs drive the requirements, not the organisers or the venue.

I'm kinda surprised the trampoline places are still in business. They create a disproportionate amount of injuries.

J

They're in business because, despite the documented injury risk, they're popular with kids and, more significantly, they're money-spinners.  My local council-run ice-rink was replaced with a trampoline room, much to the ire of skaters.  Pretty obvious they'll take much greater revenue from the trampolines, especially when you include running costs.

Having said that, ice-skating isn't without risk either 

[Regulator]

I suspect the insurance needs drive the requirements, not the organisers or the venue.

I'm kinda surprised the trampoline places are still in business. They create a disproportionate amount of injuries.

J

They're in business because, despite the documented injury risk, they're popular with kids and, more significantly, they're money-spinners.  My local council-run ice-rink was replaced with a trampoline room, much to the ire of skaters.  Pretty obvious they'll take much greater revenue from the trampolines, especially when you include running costs.

Having said that, ice-skating isn't without risk either

As my left knee and right ankle are testament to...