Newsletter No. 359
How AbilityNet transforms lives through technology: 2024 at a glance
In 2024, AbilityNet made great strides continuing our mission to support people of all ages and abilities in using technology to achieve their goals at home, work, and in education. By promoting digital inclusion and accessibility AbilityNet has helped to enhance the quality of life for digitally excluded individuals with a focus on disabled people and older people.
We have provided support by delivering digital support sessions, gifting devices, and creating a wealth of free tech-related resources. Our corporate clients, having learned from testing and training opportunities, have become more confident in delivering digital accessibility and supporting their digitally excluded colleagues and customers. Through the combination of those initiatives we generated an impressive £2.3 million in public benefit during 2024!
Four ways to prepare for the UK digital landline switchover
You may have heard that landlines are changing and that the UK’s telephone network is going digital. These changes will affect everyone who has a landline they’d like to keep using.
An industry-wide shift from analogue to digital will see BT and many other home phone operators in the UK provide services over a broadband connection, similar to work taking place in other countries around the world. Between now and 2027, all telephone providers will be moving their customers over to new upgraded landline services that use broadband to make and receive calls.
To further raise awareness of the switch, BT has launched a new initiative called ‘Connected Together’, aimed at friends and family members of those with additional needs, such as elderly relatives. With ‘Connected Together’, alongside BT’s direct customer communications, BT is encouraging friends and family members of those with additional needs to take a few simple steps to help support their loved ones during the switch to a digital landline, such as helping explain what they need to do in preparation for switching and why it is important.
Accessibility must be at the heart of rail reforms - Transport for All
Transport for All CEO Caroline Stickland tells the Transport Times conference that accessibility must be at the heart of rail reform. She challenged the Government’s current rail consultation, and called for accessibility to be at the heart of proposals for reform, so that disabled people can travel easily and safely on our rail network.
Disability charities urge government to protect cash - BBC News
Leading disability charities have called on the government to ensure that people will continue to be able to use physical cash in shops. It comes after a government minister said that shops will not be forced to accept cash, despite concerns that millions of vulnerable people rely on it.
Disability Rights UK (DRUK) and the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) are warning that making card payments the default creates “more barriers” for disabled people. The BBC has heard from disabled people and their families who fear losing access to cash would limit their independence.
Major survey calls for new ideas on how to reinvent post diagnostic support for blind and partially sighted people | RNIB
The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) is launching a new research study to better understand post diagnostic support across the sight loss sector.
People who have experienced being diagnosed with a sight condition know it’s not always easy to get the right help. A wide range of organisations including local councils, the NHS, charities, including The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), offer various forms of support, but overall it remains a postcode lottery with experience varying greatly in different parts of the UK. RNIB’s 2024 Out of Sight report found that 26 per cent of local authorities leave blind and partially sighted people waiting more than a year for a vision rehabilitation assessment.
RNIB is reaching out to professionals and partners right across the sight loss sector to gather new ideas about the way post diagnostic support can be more effective. This could include ideas for new services to build practical skills, new ways to access tech expertise and tools or offers of emotional support including peer to peer. The research will also engage people with lived experience of sight loss and their friends and family.
Launching the UK Vision Research Network
Across the UK, we have a wealth of potential to tackle problems in vision research and produce some of the world’s leading science in the field. But we’re missing a vital puzzle piece: opportunities for collaboration and coordination. Our experts often tackle some of the biggest challenges without connecting to their peers because our research centres lack coordination. That’s why we’re launching the UK Vision Research Network.
What is the UK Vision Research Network (UKVRN)? UKVRN will bring brilliant minds together, connected by their determination to tackle the biggest challenges in vision research through innovation and collaboration.
The first step in building this network is an exciting doctoral training programme, which will open in April 2025. This programme is unique because students will have co-supervisors from different institutions, and ideally different disciplines. The main supervisor will collaborate with the co-supervisor to produce the application.