Dr Stephen Duckworth says moments of jubilation such as the Paralympics can mask the harsh reality of life for disabled people in the UK

Last month Great Britain’s Paralympic athletes returned to our shores triumphant, boasting 147 medals. We won 64 golds, matching the highest number of gold medals at a Paralympics.

For each one of these, the UK invested approximately £1.5m, no small amount in real terms, and a great reflection of where there is investment, there is also success.

Sport is undeniably one of our most important cultural and social assets. We are good at it, usually, and it brings people from different backgrounds together. For disabled people, vulnerable to social isolation, this couldn’t be truer. It’s a mechanism that creates and promotes a sentiment of inclusion, and it is inclusion that lies at the heart of challenging perceptions of what it is to be disabled.

There is a real chance of masking the day-to-day struggles facing disabled people, many of whom continue to feel excluded from society

Dr Stephen Duckworth

However, therein lies a danger. In creating such moments of jubilation, there is a real chance of masking the day-to-day struggles facing disabled people, many of whom continue to feel excluded from society because resources aren’t invested into the less-glamorous services which help promote inclusion for millions across the country.

Disabled people face exclusion on a multitude of fronts: in the workplace, in education and simply by striving to live independently. What if there was more adequate investment to enable them to realise their own potential to create long-term, tangible benefits, not for the few, but the many?

Take employment, for the six million disabled people of working age, lack of opportunities is one of the main social barriers they face. Only 46% of working-age disabled people have jobs, compared to 76% of the remaining population. Helping those people into work by investing in facilities to foster an inclusive working environment will close this gap, change attitudes and create new contributors to the economy.

In education, disabled people are three times more likely not to hold qualifications compared to non-disabled people. Tick-box approaches to disability guidelines, coupled with a lack of clarity on inclusion policy has resulted in academic institutions playing a significant role in bolstering these statistics.

From a business perspective, not only are we cutting out a significant talent pool of potential employees, we’re also snubbing a combined spending power of £212billion. Two-thirds of disabled people think products aren’t developed with them in mind, and 75% have left a business due to poor disability awareness. There is a clear economic driver for business to chase the purple-pound.

One legacy the Paralympics will leave is the irrefutable evidence that where there is investment, there is improvement. If we are ever to achieve a true policy of inclusion wherein all people can freely, openly, and without pity, accommodate and value any person with a disability, then we must re-evaluate where the country invests resources to help.

Dr Stephen Duckworth is chair of the 2016 RI World Congress Programme Board, which was held in Edinburgh in October.