Mobility UK
The new Beafon S20
Jul 20th
Are you one of the tens of thousands of individuals who hate the small, fiddly and technologically challenging mobile phones? The market is awash with them – featuring Carl Zeiss camera lenses, 32 GB MP3’s and sat navs…who cares? I don’t know about you but when it comes to a mobile I like to phone and text. That’s it.
I’m not the only one. Sir Philip Green, the retailing titan who owns BHS is the proud owner of the entire back stock of Nokia 6130’s just in case one breaks. Ditto Marco Pierre White. Both are rather public owners of straightforward, no nonsense, simple phones that do what they say on the tin.
For the mobility impaired the issue of mobile phones runs somewhat deeper. It’s just not a question of choice but practicality. The fiddly buttons, small screens and tricky navigation can make them a true nightmare, especially for the hard of sight and people with dexterity problems (for example arthritis sufferers).
That’s why I’ve been rather taken with the latest addition to Bea Fon’s range of big button mobiles. Bea Fon is a new big button mobile phone manufacturer who provides phones that are not only easy to use but stylish and modern in design.
The Bea-fon S20 is the latest easy to use, basic mobile phone with a whole range of useful features for everyday use. At just 85g the Beafon S20 is also one of the lightest easy to use big button phones on the market.
stylish, smart and practical
The Bea-fon S20 is the latest easy to use, basic mobile phone with a whole range of useful features for everyday use. At just 85g the Beafon S20 is also one of the lightest easy to use big button phones on the market.
With a curvy design the Beafon S20 is secure to hold while being easy on the eye with its distinctive but discrete big button design, making it ideal for those whose eyesight is less than perfect.
The Bea-fon S20 also boasts quad band GSM communication, a solid talk time of up to 250 min and a standby time of nearly 350 hours. As a hearing aid friendly phone the Bea-fon S20 additionally has futures to suit the hard of hearing with 5 Ringtone levels, hands free functionality, adjustable headset volume and hearing aid compatibility.
The Bea-fon S20 caters for the security conscious with a useful range of security features such as an SOS button for emergency calls and SMS messages, built-in flashlight and a key lock button preventing accidental calls.
All in all, the Bea Fon S20 is designed to cater for everyone with its large clear screen, big buttons, loud ringer and hearing aid compatibility. However, most importantly it really assists those who may be partially sighted, dexterity impaired or hard of hearing. It is available in both black and white for just £99.00 at www.MatobShop.co.uk.
BTW, if you are mobility impaired, don’t forget to visit Mobility Compare which has an excellent comparison chart, buyers’ guides and news on all things mobility.
Best car for wheelchair passengers?
Jun 1st
Having worked for BMW (GB) in Bracknell earlier in my career, I’ve always kept an eye on the motor industry. In fact I still keep a candle burning for the Teutonic car brand because the Bavarian auto maker is perhaps the most professional outfit I’ve come across.
Still, I must share a little anecdote about a TV ad we shot for BMW way back when. The ad agency, Covent Garden’s WCRS, wanted to show how a 50 pence piece could be kept upright on a BMW engine whilst the engine was running. Up against our BMW 525i was a Saab and Audi.
The problem, however, was that the Saab kept the little blighter upright with the 50p only tumbling at very high revs. Solution? The ad was shot at exactly 6,500rpm which allowed the BMW to be the only car which kept the 50p coin on its side. At any other revs the Saab won hands down. Which goes to show that there are lies, damned lies and car ads.
Moving swiftly on and with a lawyers letter freshly clutched in my hands, a few days ago the London Evening Standard ‘s Motoring section published highlights from a report by Which? Magazine.
The subject? Motoring for the disabled.
I was delighted to see the Standard give over nearly a full page to this topic. What pleased me even more was the fact that the sexy new Lamborghini Gallardo was only given a quarter page in the same section. Hats off to the Standard’s motoring editor for getting his priorities right and writing about cars like the Vauxhall Meriva in preference to Italian supercars.
And, finally, to get to my point. What car did Which? Magazine select as ‘the best car for those with wheelchair passengers?’ Step up…..the Skoda Roomster. The car was praised for its tall body (that gives good access to the front and rear seats) and for its generous carrying capacity. Factor in that it is ‘gleefully different from the crowd’ and you’ve got a superb vehicle for carrying wheelchair passengers.
Skoda Roomster – better than a Lamborghini Gallardo
Congratulations are in order for Skoda. Yet another German owned car brand which knows how to make practical and value for money cars.
Perhaps its now time for the team at Mobility Compare to have a section on best cars for the mobility impaired?
Will we really get More?
May 21st
Talking with a few industry insiders at Holborn’s Ship Tavern – the Bombardier will have you flat on your back within 45 minutes so conversation is by neccessity quick and gossip-laden – my attention was drawn to the fact that three very experienced internet marketers have recently bought More Than Mobility.
Not much in that you might say – companies get bought and sold all the time – and you’d be right.
But for the mobility industry this is big news. Why? More Than Mobility owns two of the mobility industry’s leading retail websites – morethanmobility.com and another website called mobilityequipment.co.uk.
But what makes this news intriguing is the background of the 3 internet marketers who’ve bought the business. Step forward David Carr (ex-MD of AOL’s Access business); Karen Thomas (ex-CEO of AOL) and Jemma Dunn (internet director and entrepreneur).
Make no mistake, this is a heavy hitting internet team – as strong as you’d find in any other sector – which means that (a) they have earmarked the mobility sector as having huge growth potential and (b) they want to build a national quality brand name. I think that this team might just pull the industry up by the scruff of the neck!
The mobility industry lags behind many other sectors and is very dispersed, broken up and almost amateurish in the way it goes about things. That’s harsh perhaps – there are many fine companies in the sector – but if you were to examine the top ten mobility companies and compare them against the top ten car companies or top ten fashion brands you’d find a noticeable difference.
For these reasons I’ll be keeping a beady eye on More Than Mobility. When three ‘movers & shakers’ enter an industry you know that things will move fast. With this team the speedometer will be set on ‘turbo drive’.
Mobile phones with big knobs
Mar 31st
A few days ago I met with a chap representing a company called Emporia. Ever heard of them? Neither had I except that, across La Manche, they’re a seriously big phone handset manufacturer. Based out of Austria I think, the company has a decent market share of phone handsets in Germany and Austria.
What’s special about them? They specialise in making phones for the disabled, visually impaired and those with hearing difficulties.
The phones look clunky – if it was a chocolate it would be a Yorkie Bar as opposed to an iPhone’s Neuhaus selection.
But what I liked about these phones is that practicality came first. For me, that’s the first rule of disabled products – make them practical. Screw the design. For my colleagues, the phone created a mixture of appreciation and revulsion, depending on how important the phone’s design was for them.
I thought they were cracking and so did some of the staff at Mobility Compare. Tough as old boots, rugged as a lumberman’s plaid shirt, the phones’ dial buttons are huge. Perfect for anyone with arthritic hands, poor vision, dexterity problems such as Parkinsons etc etc. The bright screen was also a huge advantage – it could have doubled up as a torch.
Here’s one of the phones, the EmporiaLIFE:
I was also shown a phone that had a large red emergency button that could be programmed to call or send a pre-written text to up to five designated numbers. This was a brilliant function for anybody who needs a call-assist function or is living on their own with a pre-existing medical condition. The alarm sound? A Berlin ambulance which sounded like something out of a John Le Carre novel.
Where can you get it from? I’m not totally sure but I believe www.talkmobile.co.uk stock them and also the RNIB. They start at £169 on a Pay-As-You-Go Vodafone tariff.
The mobile industry has failed to cater for the disabled and older market, preferring to use complex technology to meet the demands of a youth driven market. For this reason, Emporia’s introduction into the UK must be welcomed.
Good luck to them….
Could you cope with one hand?
Mar 22nd
The team at Mobility Compare received an interesting email this week. We were challenged to live for one week with a disability.
Could we do it? Would we survive? We’re not sure, although there’s no question this blog would be put on hold for the week that’s for sure.
It was an interesting proposition though and made us think. After all, it’s one thing to be on crutches for a year after an accident but altogether a different proposition if you are permanently disabled.
On a related point, Heather Mills recently revealed she is working on a TV documentary about people living with disabilities alongside her Dancing On Ice partner Matt Evers. The charity campaigner, speaking on This Morning, said she would like to get celebrities involved in the TV project.
“I want to get people like you Eamonn [Holmes, the presenter] and get you to spend a week in a wheelchair. To see what it’s like to live with a disability. You would have to be looked after and pushed around by your wife.”
Whether that’s a slip of the tongue we can’t tell, because Ms Mills definitely has ‘previous’ in the ‘pushed around by your wife’ category.
We also smiled when she said, “We would get a chef like Gordon Ramsay, blindfold him, and put him in the kitchen for a week.” We can picture it now – Ms Mills in the director’s chair and Mr Ramsay blindfold in the kitchen. Cue ‘knife’, ‘chopping’, ‘dicing’ and a swift Old Bailey trial.
However, we think this idea is rather ingenious if it highlights what it is like to be one of the 8 million British disabled – in fact we think it’s a cracking idea. Certainly better than most of the tosh served up on terrestrial TV.
One of the most common conditions she could cover is losing the use of a hand. Temporary one-handedness can affect people of any age, but for the elderly it is more likely to cause lasting or permanent problems.
Hopefully the new series will also cover the many new innovations that can help with conditions like one handedness and keep people independent in their own homes. For instance, a simple tool for coping with buttons and zips, a single handed tray, a guard to keep food on plates, a chopping board that holds food in place etc.
Basically we’d like a series that has its human interest side but also an informative side that really helps the disabled. On that note, research undertaken by Homecare from The Consortium (www.homecare-products.co.uk), a new online shop to help people live life to the full at home as they grow older, has indentified the twelve most common conditions that affect the elderly, including one-handedness.
The site has many new advanced products that offer excellent features and good value for a range of disabilities and there is an on-line occupational therapist to help with queries. Well worth a visit, as is Mobility Compare, our own comparison website.
As for living with a disability for a week…..watch this space.
Fire alarms for the disabled
Mar 17th
The Government’s Central Office of Information recently contacted this blog. Yep, that’s right. Lil’ old us.
Brown? Milliband? Even Marc Michaels? No such luck, but we were contacted by a delightfully helpful lady who, for simplicity’s sake, we shall just call Helen.
The reason for her phone call? She wanted us to write a post about the Government’s initiative to raise awareness of fire alarms, especially the importance of checking the batteries every week. Streuth, we check our fire alarm once a year so we went especially red faced as Helen proceeded to tell us that we were a little bit negligent. As she added, “don’t you know that just one or two breaths of toxic smoke can leave you unconscious?”
But it was when she talked about hearing aids for the disabled that we perked up. What we didn’t realise of course is that normal fire alarms don’t work for the severe deaf – but we couldn’t imagine what devices could possibly replace them.
Enter the COI’s Helen who patiently told us that there are a variety of fire alarms for the disabled. Our favourite? The vibrate alarm which you pop under the pillow and which shakes you awake in the same manner as Mickey Rourke did in The Wrestler. If that wasn’t enough, then the same fire alarm will emit a high intensity strobe light which will make you feel you’re John Travolta in Saturday night fever.
After that onslaught a house fire would seem tame by comparison but, as this is no joking matter, all we can say is that these fire alarms are a godsend for the UK’s 700,000 severely deaf individuals.
Where can you buy them? Well, for further advice, why not get a Home Fire Risk Check from your local fire service – simply call the numbers listed. The Fire Service can then advise you further and tell you where you can get hold of the right fire alarm for you. Alternatively, if you just want to buy a fire alarm direct, why not call Safelincs?
Right. That’s our public broadcast for the day.
Special benefits ‘not necessary’ for disabled toddlers?
Feb 25th
The flag at Mobility Compare is flying at half mast today.
Why?
A Supreme Court Judge of Scotland has rejected a ruling stating families of disabled toddlers under the age of three should be allowed to claim mobility benefits. The thinking being that if a child is under 3 then it already has mobility issues – even if it’s in rude health.
We can see the judge’s logic, but we certainly don’t agree with it.
Nor does he….
Earlier in July 2009, the Supreme Civil Court of Scotland, known as the Court of Session, had ruled that European human rights laws may have been violated by the non-payment of mobility benefits to disabled toddlers (under three years of age) by the Department for Work and Pensions. These toddlers often require special furniture, like adjustable beds. These types of furniture, especially electric adjustable beds, can be highly expensive, and pose quite a burden to parents on limited incomes.
However, this month Judge Lord Brodie rejected the ruling and refused mobility benefits to Stephen and Mandy Weeks, whose son Justin suffers from a rare genetic disorder, forcing him to be dependent on artificial respiratory assistance for survival.
Stephen and Mandy made their first appeal to the court of law in 2005, when the toddler was still just an infant. At the time they had to pay around £500 on a monthly basis for using a disabled taxi service to take him to hospital. Their baby required 150 such trips during his first year alone.
For a family to end up at a nation’s Supreme Court just to get disabled benefits is tragic in a society that rewards its bailed-out bankers with £1.23 billion in bonuses. Sometimes Mobility Compare feels it’s living in a deeply sick society, one more reason to fly our flag at half mast.
Srabani Sen, the chief executive of the great charity Contact a Family (a UK organization for helping families with disabled children), was in direct disagreement with the ruling. “We strongly believe the current rules barring disabled children under three from claiming mobility benefits is unfair. Around 7,000 of the most vulnerable disabled children in the UK are affected by this rule”, commented Srabani, adding that, “Some children need to travel with bulky and life-saving equipment. It is not down to their age that they have mobility difficulties. And yet their families have to struggle without the mobility benefit for three years before it can be paid”.
Tragic indeed. Who said the law’s an ass?
London Homes Set National Standards for Disabled Living
Feb 2nd
Some new homes in Carshalton, London, are setting higher standards in disabled accommodation, and not just by adding extra facilities like bath lifts and disabled toilets. These purpose-built homes have been designed from the ground up, with special attention paid to disabled requirements.
Sutton Council has to be widely applauded. Not just for the development but also for the sentiment behind it. Rather than push disabled people to one side and marginalise them, the new houses are designed specifically to “offer dignity and respect for people with learning disabilities.” At last, a council that values its disabled residents.
The flats couldn’t have come too soon for the new tenants, changing their lives and allowing them to live in a far more independent manner than they could otherwise have done, even with the help of existing mobility support technologies like walk-in baths & showers. Located at Ashcombe Court, the tenants have only just moved into their new homes, yet they are already beginning to see the benefits of the new design and technologies available.
Funded by the Health Department, NHS Sutton and the Merton & Progress Care Housing Association, the flats were built for residents of Orchard Hill Hospital, England’s last long-stay health facility for adults with learning disabilities. Inspiringly, and in a sign that disabled people are now able to influence decision-making policy at local levels of Government, the flats were designed after considerable consultations with patients’ relatives, support staff, carers and advocates. More applause.
The single-bed, self-contained flats feature open plan kitchen/lounges, bedrooms and bathrooms tailored to the specific needs of those who have to use large wheelchairs. The latest assistive technology and equipment have also been installed, like seizure sensors, which help to ensure that the tenants can live as independently as possible.
That’s not all; the development also includes sleeping areas for caring staff, communal lounge, shared laundry, and a couple of additional spa bathrooms. There’s also an innovative ‘sensory garden’ for the residents. An individual support plan is drawn up for each tenant in order to help him/her live comfortably within the community and to help them access local shops and services.
Ashcombe Court has raised the bar in providing disabled people with accommodation designed to enhance their quality of life (and not just ‘survive it’ in any way they can). The very first of its type in the UK, the total cost for the project comes to about £3 million.
Launch photo at Ashcombe Court
It’s quite simply a magnificent achievement and if the project could be rolled out nationwide it would transform the quality of life for tens of thousands of severely disabled UK citizens. It would also put us on a par with the Scandinavian nations who have traditionally been light years ahead of us in terms of caring for our disabled.
It’s not as though we don’t have the money either. If we can find £million bonuses for the staff of UK-owned RBS Bank, can’t we find the same for our disabled sufferers? Something to ponder.
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