With six months to go, submissions are officially open for Disabled Access Day 2019 and venues are invited to submit their expressions of interest for the event on Saturday 16th March next year.
The 2019 event is championing Changing Places fully accessible toilets: venues that want to participate should have a Changing Places toilet on the premises or nearby.
Disabled people, their families and friends who wish to take part can also sign-up on the Disabled Access Day website to be kept informed of the events which will be happening in various locations on the day.
We should all be worried about bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics. It's happening at an accelerating rate, and if we don't get a handle on it, routine surgeries and chemotherapy treatments could become too risky to undertake.
Rather than simply relying on pharmaceutical companies to produce new classes of antibiotic – which they have been notably slow about – could herbal remedies provide at least part of the answer?
We are going to need lots of bright ideas to make life better and easier for people as they grow older. The Innovating for Ageing competition was set up earlier this year with the aim of identifying solutions to specific challenges faced by vulnerable consumers in later life.
77 submissions were received over the summer, and they have been narrowed down by the competition’s Advisory Board to a shortlist of 12.
Despite the assurance that austerity is "coming to an end", it is clear that not everyone has much to cheer about.
The £650 million for adult social care is a fraction of what is needed to close the funding gap, and there was no attempt to come up with a sustainable approach to meeting the growing care needs of an ageing population.
One ray of sunshine was the additional £55 million for Disabled Facilities Grants (not £45 million as initially reported). This was greeted as a vote of confidence in the programme by Paul Smith, Director of Foundations.
A new season of Champions Roadshows has just been launched, to help practitioners maximise the impact of DFG.
Nice fresh showcase pages for two of our long-term site subscribers this week!
AAT is best known for their powered stairclimbers; ideal for getting wheelchair users up and down stairs. Did you know that they also have a great range of versatile and cost-effective postural management products?
And specialist seating manufacturers, CareFlex, are covering the range of complex needs from paediatric to bariatric with their very well regarded seating solutions.
These address postural management together with comfort and pressure relief, as well as ensuring that the safety and well-being of carers is also considered.
Don't forget that you can apply to join the Independent Living Facebook group, if you would like to spend more time discussing these themes with other interested people.
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