Disabled Actor's Career on the Brink After Access to Work Cuts: 'Will I Ever Be on Stage Again?'

After a bus accident left Renu Arora using a wheelchair, she refused to give up her career – but Access to Work grant cuts threaten it.

When artist Renu Arora was hit by a bus and dragged under its wheel in 2017, she feared she would never work as an actor again, but Access to Work payments have offered her a lifeline.

“I had a near-death experience … and for about a year or so, I didn’t think I could work again because I’m a wheelchair user now,” she tells Big Issue.

As a self-described ‘sit-down artist,’ Arora has enjoyed great success – working with the Royal Shakespeare Company, BBC, and the Southbank Centre. But a Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) decision means the future is uncertain. Her Access to Work grant has been slashed by 80%, leaving her shellshocked.

“With this cut in place, I’m locked out of my entire career. It feels like an iron gate has come down, and behind the iron gate is my career. I just can’t get to it.”

Access to Work is the government’s flagship scheme designed to help disabled people stay in employment. Around 75,000 people currently receive support. But since early 2024, recipients have reported huge cuts at renewal stage. The average application processing time has surged nearly fourfold over four years.

Disabled advocates have accused the service of stealth cuts: the proportion of rejected applications rose by more than 12% in 2024-25, and by another 22% between April and October 2025-26.

Arora’s own support has been cut from 45 hours to 20 per week, with the hourly rate reduced from £30 to £17.50. Her job aide has been removed completely – totalling tens of thousands of pounds of cuts.

The timing could hardly have been worse. In the same month she learned her Access to Work award would be cut, Arora secured funding from Arts Council England and a Peggy Ramsay Foundation Award to develop The Burgundy Book – a musical based on her accident and recovery.

“We’ve got a world-class team working with us to create this enormous publicly funded project. The government has given with one hand and taken with the other in the same month.”

She has appealed the decision, but says the process has been agonising. Without the support, she fears not only for the future of The Burgundy Book, but for her entire career.

“I’m watching my peers worry about rehearsal schedules and their next commissions. And I’m staring down the barrel of: will I ever be on stage again?”

During the assessment process, Arora says she was also told there was a move towards using AI and other technology in place of some human support. She believes that fundamentally misunderstands what she needs to do her job.

“Human support and care cannot be outsourced by a machine. It just literally cannot be.”

If her appeal fails, she says she will be left unable to work and increasingly isolated.

“I’m housebound now. I literally cannot get to work. It’s the isolation… It’s a profoundly lonely place to be.”

A DWP spokesperson said the department was looking into Arora’s reconsideration request, adding: “Access to Work is a lifeline for disabled people and those with health conditions, helping them to start and stay in work, but demand for the scheme has grown significantly and the number of people supported has nearly doubled in five years.”