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15th May 2024

bbc.co.uk/accessall

Access All – episode 105

Presented by Emma Tracey

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EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý It has been yet another big week for disability news. We had the BAFTAs, Ellie Simmonds won for her documentary. You’ll find an interview with her about that on our feed. Jack Carroll, who’s got cerebral palsy, he won for his short comedy film, Mobility, about the disability bus to school, which is really, really great as well. We’ve had some interesting developments for AI and disabled people with the new version of ChatGPT. And there’s another story which we’re going to be talking about on this episode, and it’s about Right Care, Right Person, which is a policy about policing and mental health. Is it the right approach? Let’s find out. On with the show.

MUSIC-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Theme music.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Hello, I’m Emma Tracey and this is Access All, the Â鶹Éç’s podcast which is dedicated to news and stories around disability and mental health. On this episode Right Care, Right Person, but is it the right approach? One top police boss says that his officers are attending more crimes since they’ve stopped going out to certain mental health calls. A number of forces have done the same, and we’re asking what impact that’s having on people who need emergency services for their mental health.

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Now, it’s coming up to 100 days to go until the Paralympics in Paris, and I’m going to be speaking to the head of Paralympics GB, David Clarke OBE later on. Please subscribe to us on Â鶹Éç Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts, and do get in touch because I really love hearing from you. You can email accessall@bbc.co.uk.

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Right Care, Right Person is back in the news. Now, that is the scheme used by police forces in England and Wales around mental health. It’s been rolled out in more and more places since last year, and it means that fewer officers attend mental health calls; instead these are due to be picked up by the NHS and mental health services. The police still do attend in cases where there is a risk of serious harm. But mental health charities have told the Â鶹Éç that they’re deeply concerned by the arrangement after the head of the Metropolitan Police in London, Mark Rowley, said this about the scheme:

MARK-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý From a policing perspective we’re not sending police officers in to criminalise people with mental health crisis, that’s freeing up thousands of hours. So, we’ve got maybe 6,000 deployments we’re not doing; we’re attending more scenes of robberies.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý The government has always insisted that Right Care, Right Person aims to ensure that people in mental health crisis are seen by the right professional. Rethink is one of the mental health charities concerned about Right Care, Right Person, and their deputy chief executive, Brian Dow is here with me now. Thank you for joining me, Brian.

BRIAN-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Pleasure.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý What were the police doing before for those people that they’re not doing now?

BRIAN-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Well, it’s important to understand what the role of the police is/has been and is not. So, they are there ultimately to protect the public and to intervene when an individual is either causing harm to themselves or about to commit a crime or indeed causing harm to others. That’s the role of the police. It’s not to run mental health services. And of course to the extent that somebody who is perhaps having a psychotic episode might be a danger to themselves in an acute moment that’s when the police do have to step in. Now, the point is clearly that is only done to preserve safety for the individual and for the public, and as quickly as possible that person would need to be transferred into an appropriate mental health setting. The challenge of course is that you have a lack of resource on both sides, and that is leading to the admittedly completely inappropriate scenario where the police are intervening and they are sitting waiting for hours for a professional to come along, because there simply isn’t the workforce there.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý So, what is about Right Care, Right Person that you don’t like?

BRIAN-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Well, I think the idea is a good one. On one side of the balance sheet everybody accepts that it is not the job of the police to be sitting with people in accident and emergency waiting for a mental health professional to come along and screen somebody who may be at risk of doing harm to themselves or others. That is not good use of the police time. Equally we all understand, and I think there’s been a lot of coverage about this recently, that the pressure on the mental health system is intense. Waiting lists are up to 1.7, 1.8 million people, depending on how you look at it. So, there’s a problem; Right Care, Right Person as a principle is a good one. The issue is that actually the funding that’s required to put it into place properly, and its implementation, and the extent to which it appears that the training the police are receiving and therefore the judgement calls they are making in admittedly very difficult, high-pressurised situations are potentially putting individuals and the greater public at risk. And we have had some really serious incidents that we’ve been told about where an individual is at serious risk of doing harm. One episode recently of a person who was wielding a knife, and when the police turned up and realised that that person was in a mental health crisis they walked away. Now, that is not appropriate. And my worry is that we are only a very serious incident away from that judgement call leading to a really terrible episode. So, we need…

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý So, why do you think they walked away from that? Because if they’re wielding a knife they’re posing a threat to themselves or someone else, assuming that, so why did the police walk away from that do you think? Do you think that maybe the training that they’re having around what to deal with and what not to needs to be better?

BRIAN-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý It definitely needs to be better. That is not, sadly, an isolated incident; there are already some well-established events in the public domain which have occurred. So, I think it probably is down to a combination of the training and the way that those judgement calls are being interpreted. Quite obviously if somebody is being trained to say you do not intervene if it’s a mental health crisis then we are but a few steps away from a disaster. And I think there needs to be an acceptance that the police are often making very difficult judgement calls in high-pressurised environments, but actually they need to be working with mental health services and with other professionals in social care and so on who can help them make those right kinds of judgements in those difficult situations.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý So, do you think that this is happening, are they coordinating with the other services as they were supposed to? That was the plan, wasn’t it?

BRIAN-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yes, it was. I mean, I think the truth is it’s pretty patchy. I’m quite certain there’s lots of effort to make this work. I mean, there is a £260 million shortfall here in order to implement the scheme properly, that is the estimated cost of it.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Is that money that should be going to the other services like the ambulance, mental health services etc? Where should that £200 odd million be going?

BRIAN-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý It needs to be spread right across the system to be used in an appropriate fashion.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Are there still situations where the police will routinely attend, and are they attending now that this policy has been implemented?

BRIAN-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yeah, my understanding is that lots of police forces are continuing to work in a constructive fashion with mental health services. And they recognise that, look, in those situations making a very black and white decision about the inappropriateness of interventions simply because somebody has a mental health problem is not the right judgement call. So, where police services and mental health services are working well and are cooperating well and have good lines of communication I’m sure that the service can work. But I guess what we need to do is learn from the best, rather than to kind of turn a blind eye to where there are problems and pretend that actually there’s adequate funding, when we all know that it doesn’t just change the situation by saying we’re not going to turn up. You don’t change the nature of the problem. When somebody’s not very well and they need the support that they ought to be entitled to and there’s nothing there, whether it’s the police or whether it’s mental health services, I’m afraid I do feel that we are in a situation where we may be one step away from a tragedy.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Brian, what evidence does Rethink have that this policy is having a negative impact on people?

BRIAN-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Well, the evidence comes from at least three, if not four, different sources: The IOPC, the Independent Office of Police Conduct, have had a number of complaints. Ambulance services have informed us that they have a large number of cases where they believe that harm has been done or is at risk of being done where the police have not intervened. We have done our own research of various different voluntary sector and social care organisations. And of course there’s a number of stories which are very much in the public domain. So, there is evidence. Our view is that the scheme ought to be paused. There’s nothing wrong in principle with it, but I think it’s its implementation that feels very worrying.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Brian Dow, deputy chief executive of Rethink Mental Illness charity, thank you for being here.

BRIAN-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Thank you.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Earlier I spoke to Nicky Nurrish who has experienced mental ill health throughout her life, and she says she owes her life to a police officer who stopped her jumping from a bridge:

NICKY-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I’ll be honest, the lady was just, she listened, she showed empathy, and she seemed to care. And that came across to me and calmed down, should we say, because I felt like somebody was listening to me and I felt that I had somebody who might be able to help me. And they did, they took me to A&E where obviously the wait began to be assessed.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Now Nicky advocates for people with mental health difficulties in Devon. And they’ve been telling her their experiences since the policy was rolled out there:

NICKY-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý You know, even as an organisation I can’t call the police, like maybe I might have done in the past, or family and friends. We can’t do that anymore; they’re not really there for the mental health crisis side. So, we’re stuck with things like first response here and they will decide whether or not an ambulance is called and whether or not you go to A&E or you’re signposted elsewhere. And people don’t really trust that type of support, and that’s when things like psychosis gets bad and people harm themselves. And this is where we have the problem because we don’t have that interception really with additional help, which is the police.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Now, listening to all of that is Lisa Townsend from the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners. And she’s their mental health lead and she joins me now. Interesting insight there from Nicky on the ground in Devon, Lisa. How do you feel about what she’s just said?

LISA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý It’s really sad to hear Nicky say that down in Plymouth there just isn’t that trust for what sounds to me like mental health services. I think that’s really, really sad particularly when mental health services have been given funding wise a massive boost in recent years, and policing hasn’t had that and nor do we expect it, certainly for mental health. So, I think we’ve got to come back to what is the right agency to deal with somebody in crisis. Where somebody’s life is in danger, where somebody’s a threat to themselves or somebody else the police have been absolutely clear that they will always attend.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý That’s really interesting you say that because I spoke to Brian Dow from Rethink Mental Illness and he said that they feel that people are one step away from a tragedy due to the policy. He actually gave a really powerful example of where someone was wielding a knife, so we can assume that there was a potential harm going to happen there, and police came towards the situation, saw that it was a mental health situation and walked away from that. So, it’s not always the case, I think he’s saying, that the police will attend a mental health call, even if maybe the policy says that they should.

LISA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý That’s an anecdote and it’s not a case I’m aware of, and I would be absolutely shocked to see any officer do that, because the holding of a knife is itself a criminal act; having a bladed weapon in public is a criminal act. So, of course the police should be involved in that because there’s a potential crime taking place there, regardless of whether the person has a mental health issue or not.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý But could it be that the training for the new policy isn’t as it should be? Are you very confident in the training for police around the new policy that’s being rolled out?

LISA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yeah, I am. And one of the things to be absolutely clear about is that Right Care, Right Person is not a central policy that is dictated down from the top. So, as many people, listeners will know, certainly Rethink will be well aware, it’s something that was piloted by Humberside police over five years ago now in sort of response that police officers there and all around the country are dealing with a massive increase in the number of mental health callouts for police, many of which don’t involve any crime or anybody in distress at all. And so something had to be done. And so they piloted it, they took it to central government who looked at it and said, gosh this is really good, we’re able to help people who are experiencing crisis and we’re also helping victims of crime as well. But it is up to each chief constable in each police force to roll it out as and when and how they see appropriate, working in collaboration – and that’s a really important point – working in collaboration with mental health services, ambulance services, county councils, district and borough councils in their own area. It’s not about a top-down directive, it’s not about a top-down training.

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý And ultimately we’re talking about people who are experiencing mental health crises, and they’re a really important part of this, but the person who’s often missed, the group of people who are missed in this debate when I talk to Rethink or Mind or ambulance services or any of the other organisations, is the victim of crime who is not getting a response from police because two police officers are tied up for 20 hours sitting in A&E because nobody in the hospital will take over the care of this person who’s experiencing a health crisis.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý But the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives are worried about patients and paramedics for times when someone is experiencing psychosis, and they are in A&E without an escort, and maybe something goes wrong and they are harmed or a member of staff is harmed. How can you reassure them that people are safe?

LISA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I think first of all it’s not actually my role to reassure them; I think that that’s a wider piece. But we’re not talking about police not attending those, what we’re saying is there should be a one-hour handover. So, we’re not talking about no escort, we’re talking about a handover. Where somebody is in danger, you know, physically in danger then the police will always be there. That’s the police’s job to be there, and nobody is suggesting for one moment they shouldn’t be. But I come back again to this point around victims of crime. Police officers are expected to spend 18/20 hours at a time sitting in accident and emergency in a hospital where they are surrounded by health professionals, but police officers are expected to be there. They’re not therefore dealing with victims of crime; they’re not responding to the woman who’s called 999 because she’s fearful of her partner hurting her or her children; they’re not responding to the elderly couple who have been burgled. And the difference I’m afraid is nobody in policing is asking anybody in healthcare to come out and assist us with a burglary.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I mean, that’s kind of irrelevant though, isn’t it, because a burglary is not something…

LISA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý It is relevant.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Police have a role in mental health calls sometimes.

LISA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Sometimes.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I wanted to ask how that one-hour handover is going, because the NHS Confederation or other organisations have said that not enough money has been allocated to this policy for the other services, not enough time has been given before the policy has been rolled out. So, how are things going? How is that one-hour handover going? Is it working? Is there enough money? Has enough time been given do you think?

LISA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý So, I’ve been working on this policy for three years, specifically on Right Care, Right Person with Humberside and nationally. If I think back 13, 14 years, which is when I was first working around mental health policy, speaking to police officers around the country who were saying it’s becoming unsustainable the amount of time they are spending dealing with those people who are experiencing a mental health crisis who are not best off with somebody with handcuffs and a uniform and coercive powers. They are best off with somebody who has a mental health background or at least a health training. I want to be really, really clear: it’s not the police service that suffer, it’s not me that suffers, it is a victim of crime who is not getting a response from the only agency that can help her because policing are doing somebody else’s job for them.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Okay, Lisa Townsend from the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, thank you very much for joining me.

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý My guest this time is the head of Paralympics GB, David Clarke OBE. Now, David is blind like me, but I think that’s pretty much where the similarities end, because David represented Team GB in goalball which is a sport for blind people at the Paralympics in Atlanta in ’96. And then he just swapped over to a different sport, blind football, where he played 144 times for England – Great Britain? England?

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Both.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý And scored 128 goals within that time. My goodness. At the same time he has had a career in banking spanning, it says here, 24 years, followed by a stint as a director in the Royal National Institute of Blind People. David, you’re very welcome to Access All.

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Great to be here. Thanks for that.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Was that a reasonable introduction? Do you feel like that says who you are?

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Made me blush.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Did it? [Laughs]

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Made me blush, yeah.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Well, I mean, it’s all true I think. This job as head of Paralympics GB I feel like that kind of brings all the strands of what you’ve done together, so sport, disability stuff, management. Would that be right? Like, what’s your job description?

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I should have had you on the interview panel.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý [Laughs]

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yeah, I think for me I studied politics at university, then did a master’s in diplomacy and thought, well what do I do with that. Banking was clearly the obvious choice.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý [Laughs]

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý So, I joined HSBC’s graduate scheme, 24 years across HSBC, RBS, Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank, which is now Virgin Money. And at the same time I was doing the goalball and football so, you know, it was sort of working five days a week, training six days a week, and any other time trying to be a husband and a parent. And then I took that choice to move to RNIB. I guess the dream job though, which I didn’t really realise until it came up actually, was to be the chief exec at the Paralympics GB. As you say, it brings together the sport which I’ve loved all my life, it’s a small business, out of Games there are about 40 people, in the Games there are about 170, and then you’ve got the disability angle which for me is really, really important. And at Paralympics GB we want to inspire a better world for disabled people through sport, and the way we do that is by creating the gold dust and the currency on the field of play through the performances at the Games, but using those opportunities and those moments in the limelight to shine a light on the fact that attitudes and behaviours towards disability remain behind the curve, shall we say, and taking action to fix that.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý So, are you more focused on that nowadays, the activism side of it, than Paralympics GB was before maybe? The thing I noticed that you did really publicly was when you wrote an open letter with lots of other organisations to get the Disability Minister post upgraded after it had been downgraded in a reshuffle. I mean, that was surprising to me that you did that.

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yeah, I think it’s really important that as well as doing the best we can for our athletes and making sure that they’re best prepared to perform at the moment they need to perform at the Games, it would be disingenuous if we didn’t think about the rest of everyone’s life, including our athletes and including the many disabled people around the country and around the world. And I think on that particular issue we felt it was extremely important to speak out. And I’m glad to say that 56 other sporting organisations, including our colleagues and friends at Team GB and the British Olympic Association also wanted to speak out on that issue. And it was very, very pleasing to see that many other people spoke out about it across disability charities, organisations in the community, and we’re delighted that Mims Davies is now a full Minister of State.

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý But in 2022 we launched our Championing Change strategy and it was very, very clear that that signalled a change. And it’s about, you know, doing the best we can on the field of play but, as I say, using those role models, those moments in the limelight to shed light on some of the lesser issues across education, employment, transport, health outcomes, social inclusion, financial independence.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý So, was that a kind of follow-on to the WeThe15 which was kind of an international programme of human rights, disability rights, activism throughout the Paralympics world?

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý No, this was very much an independent decision taken by our board when we were looking at the strategic direction we wanted to take. We were very clear we wanted to take something over the long term. I think previously we’d had some very successful sporting strategies, but hadn’t really done justice to the changes we wanted to see outside of sport as an organisation, and the kind of change that our athletes were calling for and our sports were calling for. And so for us it was about taking a longer-term view through to 2032 where we could really pinpoint some milestones along the way and linking that in with the main propose of the organisation of course, which is to put a team into the Games.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I mean, I will get onto the actual sport bit, I will.

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý [Laughs]

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý But you said that you’ve got a strategy through to 2032; can we expect more sort of political activism within Paralympics GB? And your athletes seem to be getting more politicised as well. I mean, Hannah Cockroft was very outspoken, she said it was a really scary place to be disabled in the UK quite recently.

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yeah, and I think it’s really important that our athletes feel free to talk about their lives in a really genuine way. I remember, you know, back in 2012 I gave a couple of interviews around, funnily enough, Personal Independence Payment which was coming in at the time, recently in the news as well.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Oh my goodness, yeah.

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý And you kind of didn’t know whether you could or you couldn’t. And I just took the view that this was really important to me, this was a really important part of me as a disabled person and I needed to speak out on a topic that I felt very strongly about. And look, you know, there’s always a risk as an organisation, there’s always a risk as an athlete that the kinds of opinions you share might not be shared by everybody. But I think we’re talking about people genuinely talking about the life they live and the impact that the way society is built has on them. And who can stop that? It’s so important that our athletes, if they want to speak out on these subjects, do, and I think they speak very well.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý That’s interesting because obviously you’re absolutely revered when you’re on the Team GB and you’re winning and put right up there on a pedestal. And then, you know, if you’re a wheelchair using athlete or have another mobility impairment for example you might not be able to have a shower in your hotel room afterwards. I mean, I’m sure you’ve experienced that too as someone who’s been top blind footballer and then in the boardroom as well, and the differences between how you’re treated in those different places?

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Oh, without a doubt. I talk about the fact that I think Paralympics sport in the time that I’ve been playing which, I’ll whisper it, started in 1987, I talk about it having gone from sympathy, oh isn’t it lovely disabled people can do sport; to empathy, disabled people should be able to sport; to acceptance where actually providing opportunities for disabled people to do sport; to enjoyment, which I think came around the 2012 Games where people came to the Paralympic Park and found this amazing elite sport that they really enjoyed; and then finally consuming where they’re actually saying, we really enjoy this, we’re going to buy tickets for it, we’re going to fill stadiums, we’re going to enjoy ourselves. I think if you look at what I would call off the field, I think the sorts of subjects you guys talk about every time you get together and some of the things I was working on at RNIB and some of the issues we’ve talked about already here, there just hasn’t been the same transformation. And it’s really important that we use our platform and we use our voice and our athletes feel free to use their platform and their voice to point out inequity in terms of inclusive sporting opportunities, but also being included in life. And I guess in one sense you have to ask yourself if people can get comfortable with disabled athletes being elite Paralympians on the field of play then why not be elite in the boardroom or elite in the office or elite in the classroom or elite in the hospital. It’s these attitudes and behaviours that we have to work really, really hard to change. I’m sure you, like me sometimes feel well, I’ve pointed this stuff out for so long and things change very, very slowly.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Why do you think people want disabled people particularly to be good at sport?

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Well, first of all it’s about why do the athletes like to be elite at sport. And I think certainly from my experience once I had the opportunity, which is actually where the critical point starts normally, the opportunity does not exist for many. In fact 75 per cent of kids in school are still not getting a regular sporting opportunity as a disabled person. But for me once I found the opportunity I wanted to be better and better and better, and then I wanted to compete, and then I wanted to get to the top of my game. And if you speak to any of our Paralympians or anyone on our talent programmes that is absolutely their objective.

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I think the answer to the question ‘why do people in general find disability sport exciting and enjoyable?’ is because it’s sport. It’s not about the disability; it’s about the elite nature of it, it’s about it being absolutely at the pinnacle. The reason why people come to the Paralympics I think is to witness the very, very best that they can witness in any of the 22 Paralympic sports there are.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I mean, we’re going to hear a lot more from you in the next few months. We’ve got the Paralympics in Paris later this year, very soon, 100 days to go. Can we find a little bit about where you came from, how you ended up here? I mean, we talked about your career and everything, but what got you into sports in the first place? What was early David Clarke life like?

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý So, I was born in Wigan in the northwest of England. Born to two parents from Liverpool who were mad crazy about football, the red side I’m glad to say, and that stuck with me and my kids ever since. So, we’re kind of a mixture between celebrating and suffering throughout that period.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I don’t know what the red side means.

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý It means Liverpool.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I asked Michael Owen, I can’t remember, it was a really, really simple football term and I asked him what it meant, so there you go.

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý There you go.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý That’s how bad I am. So, you were born in Wigan, your parents were into football, your kids are into football, so football was always a thing?

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yeah, but actually I used to play football on the drive with my dad, but that was with a ball with no sound in it. And then I went away to school in Liverpool, a specialist school for the blind, Wavertree Royal School for the Blind, and there was a wonderful teacher there, who’s sadly no longer with us, Ron Delacruz was his name, and he created this ball with the ball-bearings in that we could hear. And so we started playing with school friends, but there was no way that could go anywhere; I couldn’t play for my school, couldn’t play for the county, couldn’t play for the country because there was nothing available. And then I went to secondary school in Worcester, you know, really gave loads of opportunities to do all sorts of different sports.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Worcester is kind of the Eton for blind people I always think.

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Well, except for it was paid for by local government.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yeah, I know, but…

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý In some ways it was an alternative universe created for the lack of opportunity in mainstream education, so that’s what it created. And what it meant was that as a budding sportsperson you could compete against people from being totally blind, like I was, to being quite a reasonable partial sight. And of course the age range was 12 to 18, so when I started playing football I really had to learn the skills and learn to control the football because I was playing against people who could see more than me and were bigger than me.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý And do you think that gave you the confidence then when you went into work? You seem to have crunched through all of that as a totally blind person. Do you think sport has kind of given you a lot of confidence to do that?

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I think so to a degree. But I think there’s another side of this as well which is that we do need to recognise that in many ways many of us are unwitting trailblazers. Myself when I joined HSBC frankly the IT systems did not work with a screen reader, and it took two years to make it happen, so I had to innovate and build all sorts of weird relationships at work with people to get people to help me do stuff. And it is tiring, and it’s difficult and it shouldn’t be.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yeah, and you happened to have the resilience and the team work ability to make that happen.

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yeah, but I’m lucky in that respect.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Yeah.

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý I’m not advocating in any way that that should be expected of everybody because everyone’s circumstances are different, and I was very fortunate to be coming through at a time when technology was getting better, scanning technology was getting better, businesses were actually wanting to do this stuff. But that didn’t stop me having a conversation, and a really grownup conversation as I would call it with the guys at HSBC who said hey, we’ve never done this before, this is going to be very difficult, we’re going to back you all the way but actually there are going to be times when this is going to be tough. And they were right, it was. But I’ve been very fortunate, at each point it’s been kind of critical there’s been someone there fighting alongside me. And I think allyship in this area is really important. But this stuff, you’re right, we shouldn’t have to have an alternative universe type school to get a decent education; we shouldn’t have to be relying on special people to get us into sport or get us into work. It should be a right.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý So, we’ve got the Paralympics coming up in Paris. What are your predictions for Team GB? Who are the athletes we need to be watching out for?

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Well, I’ve got a bit of a copout on this because the team gets chosen over the next few months, so it would be wholly inappropriate for me to start talking about names and people at this stage. But what I can tell you is we will have a team of 220 to 230 athletes. And we’ve had so many events in the UK and there’s been so much brilliant qualification performances going on, and we are really, really excited about what’s coming up in Paris.

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý The other good thing though, which we all need to remember, is Paralympic sport is getting more and more competitive, with more and more countries around the world taking it very seriously and investing very heavily in it. And we love that, we welcome that. But we think the team are going to perform superbly, and we’re excited. And you should come!

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Thank you so much, David Clarke OBE, and Bernie the guide dog on the floor there as well, give you a nod too. Thank you for joining me and good luck.

DAVID-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Thank you.

EMMA-ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý As another episode of Access All draws to a close my thanks go to Brian Dow, the deputy chief executive of Rethink Mental Illness, to Lisa Townsend the mental health lead at the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, and Nicky Nurrish, and also of course who you just heard there, David Clarke OBE. And doesn’t he have a busy couple of months ahead?

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Please subscribe to us on Â鶹Éç Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts from. Please do get in touch, I absolutely love to hear from you. Tell me what you thought of the Right Care, Right Person section. Tell me your thoughts on David Clarke OBE. You can send us a WhatsApp 0330 123 9480. You can email accessall@bbc.co.uk. Or pop on to your social media, and we’re @Â鶹ÉçAccessAll on Instagram. See you next week. Bye bye.

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