RNIB annual review 2011/2012
Our impact, your stories, our thanks
Contents
· Introduction
· Stopping people losing their sight unnecessarily
· Supporting independent living
· Creating an inclusive society
· Thank you
· A brief look at our finances
· How you can help
· Contact details
79 per cent of blind and partially sighted people have difficulty identifying food and medicine labels.
43 per cent of blind and partially sighted people would like to leave the house more often.
Introduction
This has been an incredibly challenging year for us as a charity and more importantly for blind and partially sighted people across the UK. But despite the real problems that cuts to income and services are causing, we are still very proud of the impact that our staff and supporters have achieved this year for people with and at risk of sight loss.
We began the year by empowering blind and partially sighted people to voice their fears as part of the Hardest Hit campaign to tackle the potential impact of the Welfare Reform Bill on their lives. This campaign contributed to a notable success in the reversal of the government’s proposed changes to Disability Living Allowance (DLA) which would have had a devastating impact on blind and partially sighted people in residential care. However, as the year draws to a close our attention is focused on the proposed change from DLA to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) in 2013. According to the government’s own figures, about half a million people would lose their entitlement altogether as DLA is replaced by PIP. Others will qualify for a lower rate than they currently receive.
The criteria for the new benefit fail to recognise that sight loss is a serious disability and that you face extensive extra costs if you can’t see, and that these are ongoing. This will hit blind and partially sighted people particularly hard and we will campaign tirelessly to ensure that their quality of life is not reduced by proposed welfare changes that are unfair.
In November three of our residential services working to improve the quality of life for blind and partially sighted children and young people received “Outstanding” grades following Ofsted inspections. These fantastic achievements at RNIB Sunshine House Children’s Home, RNIB Pears Centre Children’s Home and The Stan Bell Centre at RNIB College Loughborough demonstrate our continued commitment to delivering exemplary education and care services for children and young people with complex needs that make a real difference to their lives and the lives of their families.
Our work for young people also achieved a positive outcome when Ofqual (the exams regulator) ruled that children could use specially adapted computers in exams if they can’t read braille or large print – a huge step in allowing many blind and partially sighted children to have the same access to qualifications as their sighted peers as they build an independent future for themselves.
Our campaigning for financial independence for those with sight loss has been tremendously successful this year. Our work to persuade banks to provide talking cash machines has resulted in Barclays committing to rolling them out in the next year, and Lloyds Banking Group have committed to make their ATMs talk and will be targeting 1,500 machines in 2013. This commitment will work across all their brands which include Halifax, Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB. These changes will enable more blind and partially sighted people to access and manage their own money independently.
We ran our first ever “Switch on to technology” month this year to provide more blind and partially sighted people with the opportunity to get to grips with new technology such as computers, eBooks and smart phones and to learn how to use this technology to increase independence in all areas of life. Over 3,700 people took part in regional taster events and online activities resulting in increased product sales, more queries to our information and advice services and increased take up of our volunteer technology support squad which offers practical support to make the most of technology in the home.
We are also very proud of what our work leading the cross-sector UK Vision Strategy has achieved this year. For the first time “reducing avoidable sight loss” will be one of the indicators used by local authorities in England to drive public health improvement. In the coming years this change will ensure that the population of blind and partially sighted people in a local area is more accurately recorded and the required support and prevention services are in place and properly promoted.
As well as these significant new impacts, the impact of our more established services was also something for us to be proud of. Not least the fact that our National Library Service sent out over one and a half million books in braille, audio and giant print enabling 46,000 blind and partially sighted people to enjoy reading, and that our Helpline and information services dealt with over 450,000 enquiries, providing people with reassurance and increased self confidence. Many of these enquiries were focused on the pressures people were facing due to the economic climate.
We also empowered people to make positive, practical improvements to their lives; for example we gave 5,338 blind and partially sighted people specialist support to claim benefits they are entitled to, amounting to an incredible £10.2million in additional income.
All of this fantastic impact, and much more besides, some of which you can find out more about in this report, would as always not have been possible without the fantastic generosity of our supporters. To name but a few, thank you to our network of volunteers who make up our technology support squad providing practical support in people’s homes, and to our campaign supporters all over the UK who have continued to challenge service delivery that is inaccessible to blind and partially sighted people, to make society more inclusive.
And thank you to everyone who has supported us with a generous gift, including those who took part in our new annual fundraising event – Read for RNIB Day – which was launched in October, as well as those guests who attended our gala dinner at The Savoy and were entertained by Sir Tom Jones.
Looking ahead to this year it is of course a big year for the country as the Olympic and Paralympic Games come to London. Throughout the year we have been working hard to make sure that people with sight loss can enjoy the games and we have succeeded in ensuring that, for the first time ever, live audio description will be provided for all the sporting events, including the opening and closing ceremonies. However we must continue to focus on the very real threats that exist to the lives of blind and partially sighted people and those at risk of sight loss in the UK. This year we will continue to do all we can in these very difficult times to improve the quality of life and independence of people with sight problems.
Kevin Carey, RNIB Group Chair and Lesley-Anne Alexander, CBE, RNIB Group Chief Executive
Stopping people losing their sight unnecessarily
Over 50 per cent of sight loss in the UK can be avoided. We do all we can to reach the people most at risk of losing their sight with crucial eye health messages and to ensure that potentially sight-saving treatments are available to all.
There are almost two million people in the UK living with sight loss.
The annual cost of adult sight loss in the 10 UK is £2.5billion.
Working to eliminate the huge proportion of sight loss in the UK that is avoidable
This year we have launched projects in five areas of the UK to improve our understanding of the barriers to eye health that people experience and the ways to counter these barriers. Although the devastating experience of losing your sight can happen to anyone we are particularly targeting the most at risk groups and striving to improve primary and secondary eyecare for people on low income and from Pakistani and Caribbean populations. The completed research has identified people’s experiences and concerns and we are now beginning to trial potential solutions.
Working in partnership to ensure people have a potentially sight-saving eye test
Sight tests can identify a potentially sight threatening eye condition before any symptoms are experienced. This is a crucial message in preventing avoidable sight loss and is why opportunities to work across the eye health sector, such as National Eye Health Week, are so vitally important and enable us to reach people we could not reach on our own. During National Eye Health Week 2011 we worked with 16 key partners and reached in excess of 510,000 people who are either at risk of losing their sight themselves, or work closely with people who are.
4,500 people were given one-to-one support about their eye condition.
Making people more aware of the link between smoking and sight loss
Smoking doubles the risk of developing age-related macular degeneration, the UK’s leading cause of sight loss. In fact, the link is as strong as the link between smoking and lung cancer. For several years we have been warning the public about the link between smoking and sight loss and as a result of our lobbying we are delighted that the European Commission has listened to our concerns and formally adopted a new health warning “smoking increases the risk of blindness” to be printed on tobacco products.
260,000 leaflets were distributed on the most common causes of sight loss.
Challenging health service providers not to cut potentially sight-saving treatments
With the Royal College of Ophthalmologists we launched our report “Don’t turn back the clock” at Parliament in June 2011. It outlined which Primary Care Trusts across England were restricting access to cataract surgery. Throughout the year we have protected public safety by challenging NHS healthcare providers who have offered treatment for wet age-related macular degeneration using an unlicensed, and cheaper, drug, to amend their policies and in several cases, ensured that patients are given a meaningful choice of treatments. At the end of the year we launched our “Save our Sight” campaign through which we will make continuous efforts to improve access to the diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of the four leading causes of blindness. Dennis’s story demonstrates why this work is so vital.
Dennis Sleigh is a 69-year-old singer, songwriter and poet from Derby who had an early cataract in his right eye that was successfully removed. He has now developed a cataract in his left eye that causes him problems with glare when driving, and also when writing his songs and poetry. However, because the operation on his right eye was successful and his vision in his second eye still appears to be good he has been told that he cannot have the cataract in his left eye removed.
“I have told them that I am struggling with my writing and with driving. I think that’s what should count, not an artificial rule based on visual acuity. After all, there is all this talk about a patient centred NHS. For me that means that they should fix my eye so I don’t have to rely on other people for transport and I can continue doing what I love most.”
Over 50 per cent of sight loss could have been avoided.
Speaking up for the needs of people with sight loss to those planning vital services
Tracking the levels of sight loss is key to demonstrating the needs of the population and therefore opening up better access to sight-saving treatments for people at risk of losing their sight and life enhancing services for people living with sight loss. Our work with other organisations to analyse eye health data and build an evidence base which has been communicated across the sector has led to the fantastic result that the Public Health Outcomes Framework for England – which sets out the desired outcomes for public health and how these will be measured – will now include an eye health indicator tracking the three major causes of sight loss.
358,000 people are registered as blind or partially sighted.
Supporting independent living
We want blind and partially sighted people to have the opportunity to remain as independent as possible and we provide the services, support and solutions to enable this.
66 per cent of blind and partially sighted people of working age are unemployed.
There are around 40,000 children and young people 16 living with sight loss in the UK.
Supporting people when they are diagnosed with a sight threatening condition
Our Eye Clinic Liaison Officers (ECLOs) are often the first support people will receive helping them to come to terms with losing their sight. ECLOs gave support to over 17,500 people when they were first told they are losing their sight. During the year we have increased the number of eye clinics where this vital support is available, as well as further developing the expert nature of the support through training and development opportunities for ECLOs.
17,600 people were given support and advice when they were diagnosed with sight loss.
Improving the opportunities for blind and partially sighted children to fulfil their potential
We secured a major step forward in access to qualifications for blind and partially sighted pupils this year when, as a result of our lobbying, Ofqual (Register of Regulated Qualifications) ruled that from September 2012 children who could not use braille or large print would be able to use a computer and screen reader in exams. We have also launched the “Load2Learn” project with Dyslexia Action which will result in 1,000 accessible text books and 700 accessible images becoming immediately available for children and young people to use.