radio programme

Harsh Realities looks at how doctors, nurses, social services, and advisers take vital decisions about people's lives. The second programme in the series tackles child disability and the stark choices facing parents and professionals when a baby is born severely disabled. In each programme, Niall Dickson will be joined by professionals who have direct experience of the subject under discussion. In order to listen to this programme select programme 1 for audio access.

The Reith Lectures were inaugurated in 1948 by the BBC to mark the historic contribution made to public service broadcasting by Sir John (later Lord) Reith, the corporation's first director-general. The subject of the 2003 Reith Lectures was The Emerging Mind. Vilanyanur S. Ramachandran, Director of the Centre for Brain and Cognition at the University of California delves into the mysteries of the mind, exploring questions of neuroscience and philosophy. This resource is part of the Open2.net website which is the online learning portal from the Open University and the BBC.

This episode of Radio 4's Woman's Hour series discusses a recent report by the Economic and Social Research Council which claimed that more Britons live alone than ever before and that loneliness seems to be the one thing people dread. But does living alone necessarily mean we're lonely? Jenni Murray is joined by Helen Wilkinson, a social commentator and founder of Genderquake and Professor Christina Victor, a gerontologist at Reading University.

This episode of Radio 4's Woman's Hour series looks at how being a lesbian has changed. Jenni Murray talks to Clare Summerskill about her new play, Gateway to Heaven which is based entirely on the memories of older lesbians and gay men. Their stories are an eye-opener on a time when lesbians and gay men were significantly more constrained, both legally and socially, than they are today.

This BBC resource contains a range of radio programmes on disability.

This BBC radio programme looks at elder abuse, its characteristics, causes and approaches to try to reduce it.