Quick Facts

There are over 10 million disabled people in Britain (1)

The annual spending power of disabled adults is estimated at around £80 billion. (1)

There are 378,000 people in the UK who are registered as blind or partially sighted; 315,000 in England, 38,000 in Scotland, 20,000 in Wales and 5,000 in Northern Ireland. (2)

1 in 60 people have a visual impairment and only 1 in 5 visually impaired people are totally blind (3)

In the UK only 1 in 7 of the whole population has a hearing impairment, representing 8.7 million people (3)

In the UK there are approximately 50,000 users of British Sign Language as their first or preferred language (4)

One in five disabled customers experienced difficulties in accessing services due to a reason related to their disability. (5)

Nearly three quarters of goods and services providers in scope of the DDA (part III) provided no training on disability issues to staff dealing with disabled customers (5)

Businesses had a restricted view of disability and this was usually limited to visible mobility impairment when in fact, fewer than 8% of disabled people in the UK are wheelchair users.

Find out more about accessibility of information in the key sectors listed to the right.

Sources:
www.drc.org.uk
RNIB
www.mickwood.com
RNID
Employers Forum on Disability www.employers-forum.co.uk