The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into stark relief the pervasive inequalities already faced by people with learning disabilities. Starting early and continuing throughout people’s lives, people with learning disabilities are more likely to experience the social and economic inequalities recognised as having an impact on the health and wellbeing of anyone: poverty and hardship, poor education, unemployment and underemployment, poor housing, social isolation and exclusion, bullying and crime. In addition, pervasive discrimination in the very health and social services designed to support people can widen rather than narrow these inequalities, with the result that even before the COVID-19 pandemic people with learning disabilities were dying on average 15-20 years younger than other people.

In this lecture Professor Hatton uses recent research tracking the experiences of adults with learning disabilities through the pandemic to talk more broadly about the marginalised and precarious position of people with learning disabilities within UK society. Professor Hatton also reflects on the collective nature of the research he has been involved in, the role of research evidence (and academics) in social change, and the importance of resetting research on a routinely ethical footing.

Professor Hatton pays tribute to the self-advocates, family members, activists, journalists, lawyers and professionals who are working for equality and justice in the most difficult of times. 

Professor Hatton joined the Department of Social Care and Social Work at Manchester Metropolitan University as a Professor of Social Care in September 2020. He previously worked at Lancaster University (including a stint as Co-Director of the Public Health England Learning Disabilities Observatory), the Lancashire Clinical Psychology Programme, and the Hester Adrian Research Centre at the University of Manchester. 

Most of the research Professor Hatton  has been involved in concerns people with learning disabilities (‘intellectual disabilities’ is the term more often used internationally). In the more than 30 years he has been working there have been a lot of research projects with a lot of people. If there is a golden thread through these projects, it might be documenting and understanding the inequalities faced by people with learning disabilities, evaluating policies, services and supports that are supposed to tackle these inequalities, and working with others in a position to put this research evidence to good use.