The disabled century / 1970 - present.

An early 1070s report examining the state of Britain's mental institutions and their inmates called these patients 'socially dead'. There was no organized representation for the physically and mentally disabled. When it became the policy to release these patients to be cared for 'in the community' some were keen to seize their freedom but many found the transition too abrupt. Care in the community existed as little more than an idea and disabled people, many of whom had spent their lives in institutions, were given little or no preparation or support in coping alone. The 1995 Disability Discrimination Act was ineffective and fuelled the impatience of campaigners determined to put an end to the exclusion of the disabled. The fight for access became a prominent issue of the 1990s and at the end of the century poverty and unemployment remain disproportionately high among the disabled.