Welcome to the Making the West Midlands an Exemplary Region for Disabled People report.
We're presenting the report as part of our commitment to build a region where people thrive in the places they live and work.
Background
In December 2023, the West Midlands Combined Authority Executive Board agreed to initial work to develop a comprehensive disability needs assessment.
This is in line with the WMCA’s health inequalities priorities to develop an in-depth understanding of the health of communities and populations in the region and understanding the barriers and enablers that the WMCA core functions bring – housing, transport, employment and skills.
To reflect the WMCA’s health function and collaboration with health stakeholders, this work also focuses on health, social care and wellbeing as a cross-cutting theme.
A Disability Working Group was set up to understand the scale of the challenge, where the gaps are and where more needs to be done.
Objective
The exemplary region’s ambition stems from the initial WMCA work to understand what is needed to enable more disabled people to be physically active.
This identified that to achieve this, we needed to focus attention on understanding and addressing some of the wider determinants that prevent people getting active. It also highlighted the importance of centring on the voices of disabled people, the focus was to support organisations to engage and understand the impact of wider determinants such as housing, transport, and employment.
This Disability Needs Assessment (DNA) is a deepening of the initial project, getting rich complex qualitative and quantitative data and opportunities for action that will have the greatest impact in reducing inequalities.
An exemplary region focuses as much on a way of working as it does on the delivery of actions.
Full Report: