Mr. Peter Kearns:

I will follow on from what Mr. Sherwin has said, in terms of the practical things that could be done by local authorities now with DPOs. They could look at switching the emphasis from the old way of disability awareness training to disability equality training. To give an example in terms of local DPOs, on Tuesday I delivered a disability equality training workshop for the whole day with the North West Regional Drugs and Alcohol Taskforce to start the conversation with local DPOs on the use of prescribed drugs for disabled people. It has taken two years for this to happen but it is really exciting that the taskforce will work only with local DPOs to listen to the lived experience of disabled people who encounter misuse or abuse of drugs prescribed by health professionals. The reason we started the disability equality workshop is so that we all have a common narrative, common discourse, and common models such as the medical model and the social model of disability, that are all informed by human rights. That way, when we explore the lived experience of the local north-west DPOs, they all have a shared language.

That is important for the DPO Network and the disability equality training is something that local authorities can do now. They could ask themselves, if they are giving so-called disability awareness training, to talk to local DPOs and get them to help in the design and delivery of disability equality training from a DPOs human rights and social model of disability perspective. That could happen now.