In this issue:
- Why I joined the PDA Ability Network: An introduction from the PDA Ability Network President
- Why I joined the PDA Ability Network: Being neurodiverse
- Disability Pay Gap
- Life with Functional Neurological Disorder
- Find out how to get involved with the Network and its activities
- In case you missed it
Why I joined the PDA Ability Network
I joined the PDA Ability Network in September 2024. This has been an inspiring journey, and it has given me a different perspective on working as a pharmacist within the profession. There are many challenges that individuals within the network have experienced and faced.
The PDA Ability Network has helped me by joining a community which provides us as professionals with psychological safety and where we as a collective, are able to come together to discuss matters of importance to ourselves and those within the pharmacy workforce which may affect individuals with hidden or physical disabilities.
From pharmacy students to qualified pharmacists, we come together from different backgrounds, differing lengths of service to pharmacy and different lived experiences, with a common theme of wanting to learn and grow, whilst shaping the future of the broader landscape and different pharmacy sectors.
At the age of 34, I was diagnosed with dyslexia. As an individual who identifies as being neurodiverse, this has helped me in re-writing the narrative and to have open and honest discussions about differing perceptions and to advocate for those who need a community to hold that space. I am truly grateful for the PDA Ability Network platform, which has provided me with different opportunities to speak about and discuss matters of importance. This, I hope, will pave the way for the future generations of pharmacists and support those who are in need of this.
I am passionate about creating a safe space where pharmacy professionals are empowered, heard and supported. I have found such a space with the PDA Ability Network and its members.
Why I joined the PDA Ability Network: Being neurodiverse
By Rosie Barnes, Fourth year pharmacy student, Vice President of the Ability Network
Just over a year ago I was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder after years of suspicion and a lifetime of feeling different. Not only did my diagnosis confirm why I found some things more difficult than my peers, it also allowed me to feel comfortable in disabled spaces and to advocate for myself and my needs. I joined the Ability Network a few months after my diagnosis and in June, I wrote an article about how communication differences are taught and accommodated in pharmacy education.
The PDA Ability Network offers a safe and confidential space to discuss our concerns as neurodivergent and disabled students and workers. The Network also allows us to come together on issues of importance to us and become more powerful than each of our voices would be separately.
My experience of the Network last year gave me the encouragement I needed to write my article for Member Voice and to raise concerns about some of the language used surrounding neurodevelopmental conditions in my lectures. These actions are small, but many such actions together flag existing problems and hopefully result in meaningful change.
Improving accessibility has benefits beyond those for people with disabilities. Many commonplace household items were originally developed to improve accessibility for disabled people: electric toothbrushes, computer keyboards, audio books, adjustable height desks, and automatic doors. These are all examples of accessibility aids which allow disabled people to have greater independence but have also greatly benefited everyone.
Similarly, changes that improve accessibility for disabled workers will also improve the care of patients within a healthcare setting and the working conditions for non-disabled colleagues. An example of a successful Ability Network campaign is Stand up for Sitting Down. The lack of seating available for people working in pharmacies was preventing people with disabilities from being able to work in those settings, despite sitting down not impeding pharmacists from performing their responsibilities. The campaign helped to highlight this and as a result there is now more awareness that needing to sit down while working is a very reasonable accommodation. Sitting down to perform responsibilities will not only benefit those that need this accommodation to work, but also their colleagues who probably found standing up all day uncomfortable.
The autism community sometimes uses the analogy that we are the ‘canaries in the coalmine’, that autistic people tend to be affected by damaging environments before allistic (or non-autistic) people. One healthcare related example of this could be the use of bright white lighting in clinical settings. While it is undoubtedly necessary to have such lighting to properly assess patients, many autistic people find this incredibly uncomfortable, exhausting, or even intolerable. However, speaking to neurotypical friends about this, I have learnt that this lighting can also be unpleasant to them just not to the same extreme. Improving accessibility in this case could look like having dual setting lights which have one warmer setting for use outside of clinical situations, and the traditional white light setting for the proper assessment of patients. Again, this would have benefits to the patient population and to other workers as well. For instance, it would allow for patients with sensory issues, such as autistic patients, to be seen in a less demanding sensory environment. This could reduce the distress associated with accessing healthcare for these populations, potentially improving health outcomes.
I am a fourth year pharmacy student now; it will not be long before I start my foundation year and enter the pharmacy workforce. I hope that through the continued work of the Ability Network, we will be able to improve the working conditions for disabled pharmacists now and for future workers.
Disability Pay Gap
By Hazel Gueldner, Honorary Secretary of the PDA Ability Network
Women’s pay equality has always been on the agenda. When I was just out of university in 1990 (yes, it was the last Century dear reader), the working pay gap for women was sitting at 30%, and that was considered a significant improvement!
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation had research that showed that one important factor was that mothers spent less time in paid work, and more time working part-time, than do fathers. Hardly a revelation even now, with the cost of childcare and more seniors working longer to earn their retirement.
Last year women working full-time had a median pay of 6.9% less than men, yet women working part-time actually got paid 2.9% higher per hour than men. When the Office for National Statistics crunched the numbers, it revealed that the ‘typical’ woman employee earned 12.8% less than men in April 2025. The NAWP Network marked Equal Pay Day in the UK on 22 November 2025.
But hang on – SCOPE marked Disability Pay Gap Day on 12 November 2025. The TUC (Trades Union Congress) found that disabled workers, on average, earned £4,081 less than non-disabled workers per year. This means that they would have worked for free for 49 days last year if working free work in 2025 if in full-time work. Coupled with the price tag of having to spend over £1,000 extra per month on the costs of being a disabled household at 2025 prices, you can see why we still need to earn. If you read the TUC report, it actually says that disabled women earn 27.3% less than disabled men.
So that would mean disabled women like me had to work for free last year from 23 October, a whole month, almost before non-disabled female peers. This shows we haven’t come a long way in the last century.
Learn more
- Wage progression and the gender wage gap: the causal impact of hours of work | Institute for Fiscal Studies
- The gender pay gap by Brigid Francis-Devine
- SCOPE Disability Price Tag 2025
- TUC – Disability pay gap means disabled workers effectively stop earning from today
Life with Functional Neurological Disorder
By Hazel Gueldner, Honorary Secretary of the PDA Ability Network
I will state right now that I hate lazy journalists who write articles about Functional Neurological Disorder (FND). They always state that FND is a rare disease – it absolutely is not. Neurologists will tell you it is the second most common disability that they diagnose after migraine. So why have few people heard of it?
It possibly is to do with an attitude that some clinicians have towards those with FND – we are putting on our non-epileptic seizures, our tics, our dissociating brains. How can someone be able to stop multiple, multiple seizures – anything up to 200 in a day? I have heard harrowing stories of ambulances refusing to take people with FND to hospital, nurses slapping, pinching and even biting those with FND in an attempt to stop seizures. It is not the disabled person’s fault – it is the caregivers that do not understand this condition. Hence, we have to be really poorly before we will seek help.
FND, once properly diagnosed is lifelong, we will continue to live with it as best we can. We can live in hope that all health professionals have a taught session on this disability in their course to prepare them for meeting us. We will continue to bear witness to friend’s seizures on a call. We will reschedule plans if we are feeling poorly. We will continue life with FND.
The Ability Network is a safe space for pharmacists like me that have FND. I know there are more than me, but that is their story to tell. My story will continue by advocating for all disabilities, for our voices to be heard, as well as welcoming our allies.
We will never lose our voice.
Get involved
- Follow the PDA Ability Network on social media using #PDAability
- For more information about the PDA Ability Network, click here.
- If you would like to get involved with the network and its activities, email [email protected]
In case you missed it
- Jyoti Buxani elected as the first President of the PDA Ability Network
- PDA Ability Network launches Neurodiversity factsheet
- PDA responds to disability and ethnicity pay gap reporting
- Celebrating 5 years of the PDA EDI Networks
- PDA Ability Network urges employers to make the workplace accessible for those with disabilities