Occupational Therapy News OTnews February 2020 | Page 48

REPORT MOBILITY ASSESSMENT
Hidden disabilities and
the Blue Badge Scheme
Nick Stone recently hosted a study day on expert assessment of
hidden disabilities in relation to Blue Badge Scheme applicants in
England, which looked at the question: Where are we now?
A
ccording to the Department for Transport
Blue Badge Scheme Local Authority
Guidance (England), published in August
2019, the aim of the Blue Badge Scheme is
to help people with severe mobility problems, caused by
visible and non-visible, or ‘hidden’, disabilities to access
goods and services, by allowing them to park close to
their destination.
In the lead up to publication and then implementation,
in England, of this new guidance on assessing hidden
disabilities applications for scheme, there was some
anxiety among local authorities.
This related to:
• how these disabilities, reflected in conditions such as
autism, dementia, ADHD and mental health issues,
might be best captured within existing assessment
processes in a fair and objective way;
• a perceived significant increase in workload for
assessment and mobility team staff;
• associated financial impact on budgets; and
• the appropriateness and ethics of putting applicants
with sometimes challenging and disturbing behaviours
through face-to-face assessment by an independent
mobility assessor (the common route for scheme
applicants deemed non automatically eligible) or
‘expert’ assessor.
SHA Disability Consultancy, an independent provider
of occupational therapy and disability assessments,
noticed this unease from its own mobility assessment
clients, and further afield through network contacts
nationally.
The organisation has been a provider of independent
mobility assessments (IMAs) through contracts to local
authorities since 2001, and was part of the RCOT
consultation process with the Department for Transport’s
(DfT) review of the Blue Badge Scheme.
48 OTnews February 2020
© GettyImages/richard johnson
Having provided in the region of 50,000 IMA
appointment slots to date, it was felt that it would be
useful to facilitate an information exchange to debate
current assessment practice models in this area, and so a
study day was convened in November 2019, in London.
On the day, there was representatives from the
following local authority councils: Havering; Hackney;
Brent; City of London; Royal Borough of Greenwich;
Sutton; Southwark; Coventry; Hampshire; Portsmouth;
Newham; Luton; Bromley; Tower Hamlets; and INSPIRE
Community Trust (provider to Bexley).
An overview of the new guidance
The event began with a presentation by SHA’s lead IMA
clinician, Domenica Russo, an occupational therapist, and
company director Nick Stone, which gave an overview of
the context for the new assessment guidance, including
that:
• society is changing and there is a heightened sense of
entitlement;
• DfT has set strict new criteria, but expectations
have been raised and there is a degree of public
misconception about entitlement;
• depending on where you live, there is varying
interpretation of the legislation and different
assessment processes;
• its aim is to help people with severe mobility problems,
caused by visible and non-visible (‘hidden’) disabilities
to access goods and services, by allowing them to
park close to their destination; and
• expert assessor is a specific definition, which replaces
that of independent mobility assessor; it still allows
for mobility assessments to be done impartially, but
now allows for a wider range of medical/healthcare
professionals capable of certifying eligibility due to
non-visible disabilities.