What are the benefits of accessible services?
Recent figures suggest that disabled people account for 18% of the population in the UK, with people with long-term health conditions accounting for another 23%. This would therefore suggest that up to 41% of the population have some form of impairment.
Additionally, a recent report claims that more than 75% of disabled people and their families report leaving shops, services and businesses because of poor customer services and accessibility. So, it would appear that access to products and services is obviously a huge issue.
Ensuring that your business is accessible to disabled people and their families will give you the opportunity to increase take-up of your products and services, as well as to retain valuable clients as they become older. This could have a massive impact on your income generation as the benefits of attracting and retaining disabled people and their families is estimated to be worth £249 billion!
How can we assist you?
Our experienced disabled advisors have been providing support to organisations and businesses for many years. In fact, many of them run their own businesses too! As a result, we have been able to assist numerous organisations to gain a competitive advantage, by ensuring that the barriers to participation for disabled people are removed.
Through our advice, training and consultancy services, we are able to work with you to identify your needs. We then propose solutions so that you can successfully implement strategies and practices that work to promote the inclusion of disabled people and people with long term health conditions in your organisation.
In this way, we are able to provide common sense, practical advice and support to enable organisations to remove any barriers to the participation of disabled people.
Who do we support?
As a result of our extensive experience, we have worked alongside people from diverse professional backgrounds and worked with organisations from the public, private and voluntary sector. As such, we have been able to assist every type of organisation, from small micro enterprises, through to large corporates. Indeed, we have provided bespoke representation, bespoke training or equality monitoring support to the following organisations:
- Local and national public sector organisations, including NHS Hospital Trusts and CCGs; Councils and Local Authority Departments; schools, colleges and universities; HMRC and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)
- Voluntary sector organisations, including disabled people’s organisations and patient user groups, such as Shaping Our Lives and Ehlers Danlos Support UK; People First and other self advocacy groups; small and large charities, including those that have a particular focus on wellbeing and co-production, such as the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE).
- Private sector organisations, including small to medium enterprises and large corporate business.
And if we are unable to provide you with support, one of our advisors will research the topic and contact you or we will signpost you to an organisation that can provide the information that you need.
What sorts of issues do we cover?
As every one of our solutions is based on an individualised programme of support, we will work with you to provide you with appropriate and relevant information, training or consultancy support. Some examples of support we have provided include:
- guidance, consultancy services and training on improving your reach to disabled people and people with long term health conditions;
- information and support with workplace impairment related issues, including support with Access to Work;
- consultancy services, so that you can establish effective policies and practices that support inclusion;
- bespoke training on disability equality issues and co-production;and
- bespoke helpline support services for your staff.
So, if you need our support, or would like to know more about Work Helpline UK, please contact us.
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