This Data shows the number of people registered with Councils with Adult Social Services Responsibilities (CASSRs) in England as being blind and partially sighted with an additional disability by category of disability, for years ending 31 March.
Categories include: Mental illness only, learning disabilities only, physical disabilities only, deaf without speech, deaf with speech, hard of hearing, mental illness and other disabilities, learning and other disabilities, physical and other disabilities. Where a client has multiple disabilities including deaf or hard of hearing, councils were advised to count this under the category of deaf or hard of hearing.
A decision was made to bring the most recent collection forward by a year for collection in 2008, due to concerns regarding the fall in the number of people newly registered as blind and partially sighted between March 2003 and March 2006. This means there will be no collection in 2009. Tables contain information relating to the year ended 31 March 2008.
The register is voluntary; however it is a precondition for the receipt of certain financial benefits. This is a factor that gives more credibility to the register for blind than to the register of the partially sighted.
The reliability of this information is difficult to determine and so cannot be thought of as a definitive number of blind and partially sighted people with an additional disability.
Further sight loss data is available from Royal National Institute of Blind People -RNIB