Disabled people's access to goods and services

A recent survey conducted by Ipsos on behalf of Leonard Cheshire Disability looked at disabled people's experience of accessing goods and services.

A recent survey conducted by Ipsos on behalf of Leonard Cheshire Disability looked at disabled people's experience of accessing goods and services, and their awareness of Part 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act (which specifies disabled people's rights regarding access to goods and services). Key Findings:160

  • Two in five (40%) disabled people have experienced difficulties accessing goods and services in the last twelve months, with around a quarter of all disabled people (23%) directly identifying their experiences as discriminatory.160
  • The difficulties they experienced included:
    • lack of appropriate facilities (15% mention)160
    • difficulty using public transport (16% mention)160
    • difficulty in entering or getting around premises such as shops, banks and hotels (13% mention)160
  • 160Around a quarter (28%) of disabled people who had experienced difficulty in accessing goods and services have taken some sort of action to challenge this. The actions taken included:
    • talking to a member of staff about the issue (17% mention)160
    • making a formal complaint to the organisation (12% mention)160
    • not using the shop or service again (12% mention)160
    • taking legal action (1% mention only). In contrast, one in eight (12%) disabled people who have not experienced difficulties accessing goods and services in the last 12 months say they would take or consider taking legal action against a service provider in the future if they felt they were treated unfairly/differently to people without a disability.160
  • Approaching two in five (37%) disabled people do not feel they know enough about the law to challenge unfair treatment in the provision of goods and services. In particular, one in five (20%) disabled people say they have never heard of the Disability Discrimination Act and around half (51%) of disabled people have heard of it, but feel they know `not very much' or `nothing at all' about it.160
  • Almost three in five (57%) disabled people do not think they would be able to afford the cost of taking legal action.160
  • Three-quarters (76%) of disabled people agree that shops and providers would make their services more accessible if they felt they might face legal action.

Download technical report and data tables (PDF)160 Download the full report materials from the Leonard Cheshire Disability website

Technical note:160

  • 160A total of 1,095 disabled people were identified and interviewed160face-to-face over four waves of Ipsos's weekly Omnibus service (Capibus). Capibus interviews a nationally representative quota sample of adults throughout Great Britain aged 15+. Two screener questions were used to establish disability status (based on the Disability Discrimination Act definition), and hence eligibility for the rest of the questions from a total sample of 7,680 Capibus respondents.160
  • Interviews were conducted between 13 November and 10 December 2009.160
  • Those identified as eligible for this survey retained the weights allocated to them as part of the overall Capibus weighting scheme, in which the data for all 7,680 respondents was weighted to reflect the known profile of the adult population in GB for age, social grade, region and work status - within gender, plus tenure and ethnicity.

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