How A Telethon Protest Improved Home Care Conditions

Whilst the ability to access an at-home care provider has existed for decades, one of the biggest changes in the conditions of people with disability care needs was the result of a televised charity event and the prevailing attitudes towards disabled people it represented.

The ITV Telethon started in 1988, which was a 27-hour show that was intended to provide money to disabled charities, although it was frustratingly vague as to where that money went and the pre-taped videos documenting examples of people they helped were criticised even at the time for being mawkish and pitying in tone.

At the same time, Barbery Lisicksi started her career as a stand-up comedian, being credited as the first disabled person to have a career in live stand-up comedy.

She, along with partner and musician Alan Holdsworth, was part of the Disability Arts Movement, which criticised charities, films and advertisements for depicting stereotypes of disabled people that were far from representative.

This extended to the ITV Telethon, which was protested both in 1990 and 1992, with the latter even leading to a moment when protestors accosted celebrities and host Michael Aspel, who quickly segued into the exact type of video the protestors had issues with.

Ultimately, whilst the protests only disrupted Telethon for a short amount of time that was noticeable on air, it did lead to change in the form of the Disabled People’s Direct Action Network, which organised protests and acts of civil disobedience with the aim of promoting disability rights.

This directly led to the first protections against disability discrimination in the UK in the form of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which made it a crime to discriminate against disabled people in the workplace, in transportation, in education and providing goods and services.

It has since been superseded by the Equality Act 2010, but the effect it has had on standards of care cannot be understated.