Access All: Disability News and Mental Health

For most people, a mental health unit is the last place they’d expect to find love.

But Hannah and Sean’s love story began at The Cassel Hospital in London. They met while being treated for borderline personality disorder.

The couple tell us about supporting each other in married life, how the hospital worked with them on their relationship as part of their treatment and how they've learned they cannot fix each other. The conversation touches on the difficult subject of suicide.

We meet Saihan, 22, and Charlie, 19, who, like many young disabled people, feel they are often under-estimated, especially when it comes to school and work.

The charity Sense recently surveyed 1,000 disabled people aged 18-24 and found two-thirds felt under-estimated in education settings which often continued into employment, and also led to them lowering their own aspirations - sometimes called internalised ableism.

Dr Kirstie Liddiard helps us to understand why this is happening and also gives some top tips on how disabled people often have far more skills up their sleeves than they believe. Think advocacy and care team management.

If you know your worth, want ideas and are feeling fierce, this is a good programme to listen to.

Presenter and producer: Emma Tracey

Series producer and presenter's friend: Beth Rose

Studio manage: Dafydd Evans

Sound design: Mike Regaard

Editor: Damon Rose

We love to hear from you - email [email protected] - just like Hannah and Sean did.

Bestselling author and TV presenter, Richard Osman, is visually impaired due to the eye condition, nystagmus, and, as a result he tells Access All, “the world is just blurred to me”.

In this wide-ranging chat with Emma Tracey, Osman describes why his visual impairment sends him into panic mode at airports and why, when it comes to his TV career, he focuses on how people feel when watching a programme, not what they can see.

He also talks about the hunch he has that disabled people could come into their own over the next decade as AI becomes more prominent, and when a premium will be put on people who think creatively when solving problems.

And with his new book, We Chase Shadows, due to hit bookshelves around the world on 10 September he gives Emma a little preview of what it’s about, speaks about his writing process and explains why he doesn’t care what his characters look like.

Presenter and producer: Emma Tracey

Say to your smart speaker: “Play Access All on BBC Sounds” to get the latest edition.

International hit-maker KT Tunstall wasn't sure what to do when she woke-up mid-tour to discover she had lost her hearing and had vertigo. Soon after she turned to her brother for support. He has been deaf his whole life, and jokingly told her he would “take out his tiny violin” for her which, she says, helped to put her hearing loss into perspective.

KT’s hearing loss remains. The Scottish singer-songwriter is back with a theatre show called The Singer which she wrote the music for. It charts the friendship between a D/deaf performer and a hearing musician, focusing on the bass and the beat so D/deaf audiences can enjoy it too.

Hands up if you rely on holiday clubs and camps to get your kids through the summer holidays? Three recent reports have highlighted parents of disabled children often don’t have this as an option. We meet Stephanie who struggles to work while caring for her disabled son while Shumi got so frustrated by a lack of options for her two kids she took matters into her own hands and created her own club. Plus we also hear from Harriet Edwards from the charity Sense which is calling for a national framework to help with the problem.

Emma Tracey also chats with Beth Rose about the latest on the The Timms Review, which is looking into the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) system, and Jimothy gets a look in too – he’s the disabled racoon who went viral.

Presenter and producer: Emma Tracey

Festival season is upon us and the access offerings at some mainstream events could be about to get better after one of the big providers was served with a legal notice to improve it.

We speak to festival fans, the BBC's Annabel Rackham and Attitude is Everything to get the lay of the land. Plus we also meet Polly Shute, co-founder of Out and Wild Festival, for lesbians and non-binary people which has a higher than average number of disabled and neurodivergent ticket holders. Polly and her team are so dedicated to accessibility they're about to move the festival 200 miles across the country to do an even better job next year.

Did you read The Secret Garden as a child? It's returning to the stage with a disability twist by asking a few key questions - what would happen if Colin didn't have to walk, or be well, to be loved by his father? And rather than being difficult, was the lead character Mary, autistic all along?

We chat with writer Tom Wentworth and actress Daneka Etchells about this re-write and they also talk about their own experiences of “medical gaslighting”.

It's a packed one for July!

Presented and produced by Emma Tracey

Presenter's friend and series producer is Beth Rose

Sound design by James Beard

Editor is Damon Rose

Say to your smart speaker: “Play Access All on BBC Sounds” to get the latest edition.

And email [email protected]

When Vikki Walton-Cole became a wheelchair-user she had to quit her job as a social worker because the courts she worked in were no longer accessible to her. Years later, she was excused from jury service, against her wishes, for the same reason.

Journalist Kateryna Pavlyuk digs into the accessibility of courts across England, Scotland and Wales, and reports back on what she found.

We also hear from juror Victoria who had to sit separately from her cohort, while London barrister Holly tells us she faces varying degrees of access in courts every day.

Autistic actor Bradley Riches is known for Emmerdale and Heartstopper but he's just published his first book - Autistically Me - a toolkit to help people thrive in a neuro-typical world.

He reveals to Emma Tracey some of the tips and tricks he used for his wedding day so he didn't burn out, and the Brit talks about how he had an American accent when he spoke for the first time at the age of 10.

Plus, producer Beth Rose joins Emma to discuss the latest disability news, and they take an audio jaunt to a breakdancing convention in Glasgow to meet B-Boys Redo and Samuka from the internationally acclaimed Ill-Abilities crew.

Produced by Emma Tracey and Kateryna Pavlyuk

Series producer is Beth Rose

Editor is Damon Rose

(At 05:19) Rapper Professor Green, real name Stephen Manderson, has long been open about his mental health difficulties and has joined up with the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy which reports seven in 10 men don’t seek support until they hit crisis point.

He explores why the figure is so high and goes on to tell Emma Tracey that his recent ADHD and Autism Diagnoses have helped him look back on his tricky school life and why he approaches rap battles in the way he does.

(at 19:30) Emma and Beth with listener feedback, families learning sign language (BSL / ISL) to support their deaf child, that Motability and black box story again, and more.

(at 27:35) Actress Kimberley Nixon has been in some of Britain’s best loved TV shows, but when she paused work to have a baby in 2020, her life turned upside down. Her book, She Seems Fine To Me, is the story of having perinatal obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and the lack of support she received while struggling with intrusive thoughts about her son being kidnapped, or filmed for the dark web.

Up to 17% of women experience perinatal OCD during pregnancy or the first year of their baby’s life but stigma means it isn’t often talked about. We’re joined by Dr Camilla Rosan who spearheaded research from theAnna Freud charity which recently said an additional 500 psychological practitioners are needed in maternal healthcare services in England to support 100,000 women.

Presented by Emma Tracey

Series producer is Beth Rose, with Emma Tracey

Mixed by Jonathan Greer

Editor is Damon Rose

Email us [email protected] and listen to us on your smart speaker by saying “Ask BBC Sounds for Access All” and it’ll serve up the latest edition to you.

And find Emma and Beth on BBC News website, radio and TV reporting on disability regularly.

From 13 April, Motability customers who start a new lease, including drivers under 30, will get weekly traffic light scores via a black box, like those used for younger drivers to get cheaper insurance.

The biggest sporting event of the year is here - the Winter Paralympics! (The Olympics was just the warm-up).

We hear from the BBC's Sally Hurst who's in Milan-Cortina for all the action and find out why ice skating isn't included in the Games. We meet two skaters - Margarita Sweeney-Baird who runs Inclusive Skating, and Rhiannon Parker-Nicholls, an elite skater who had a stroke aged 19 - who are campaigning for the sport's inclusion.

Actress Gracie McGonigal has hit our screens on the latest series of Bridgerton, where she plays new maid, Hazel. But what's it like to pour all that tea with one hand? Gracie talks about some of the confronting and surprising conversations she's had about her limb difference when it comes to the industry and the amazing job the costume designers did on set.

Plus a round-up of what's got you talking in the disability world over the past month including why some younger people are finding themselves in nursing homes and what everyday life can be like when you're living with Tourette's syndrome.

Sound mixed by Dave O'Neill

Produced by Emma Tracey

Series producer is Beth Rose

Editor is Damon Rose (no relation!)

Disabled people are waiting up to 30 weeks for a decision on whether they'll get a grant to support them at work and wait times are getting longer. We hear from three people who have been affected: Danielle Verity, a visually impaired NHS psychologist has had her grant reduced causing her career stress and worsening mental health. And George Baker is waiting for a new agreement which means he presently has no money and his support worker, Lauren, is kindly, unsustainably, working for free with the hope it will be sorted out soon.

One of the biggest challenges for neurodivergent people is the impact of everyday noises like air conditioning or chatter from people on mobile phones. Emma speaks to autistic journalist Keira Edwards about her new podcast It's So Loud In Here, coming soon to BBC Sounds.

Also, neurodivergent journalist, Hayley Clarke, joins Emma to talk about pre-loved clothes selling websites and how one mum is calling for a filtered category so you can find accessible or adapted clothes easily.

Presented by Emma Tracey

There were celebrations last year when a GCSE in British Sign Language was approved...but a few months have passed and no accredited exam board has taken it on. What now for the exam which had a strong 10-year campaign behind it?

Simon Want from the National Deaf Children's Society gives his reaction while BBC journalist Kateryna Pavlyuk talks us through it.

Cyber correspondent Joe Tidy has been in California visiting humanoid robots built to carry out domestic tasks and considers how this development might help disabled people in the future.

And the BBC's Alex Taylor is Emma's studio pal this week. He spills the tea on his new romantic relationship. Not only is he smitten but it's also given him pause for thought on letting her help with his care responsibilities so they can let his careworker go out for the night and leave them to some alone time.

And finally. Just a heads up, we're moving to a monthly podcast from now on. Our next episode will be 4 February. Catch you then!

Presented by Emma Tracey with Alex Taylor

Sound mixed by Dave O'Neill

Produced by Kateryna Pavlyuk and Alex Collins

Series producer is Beth Rose

Edited by Damon Rose