The aim of the government's Access to Work scheme is to provide support for disabled people to get into and stay within employment. It can provide support with things like specialist equipment, support workers and transport to and from work. But over the past few months, there have been rumours circulating that there are proposed cuts to parts of the scheme which is causing uncertainty amongst disabled people. In Touch attempts to dig a little deeper into what could be happening to the scheme. T...
Jul 22, 2025•14 min
It can often feel as though blind and partially sighted people, and disabled people more generally, are excluded when it comes to fashion and beauty campaigns. But In Touch hears from women who are trying to switch up the narrative and showcase that blind and partially sighted people, and disabled people generally, are active participants and consumers of these industries. Bérénice Magistretti is a co-founder of a new platform 'Visible Voices', that showcases work from disabled voices and encour...
Jul 15, 2025•18 min
In Touch examines what the government's new 10-year plan for the NHS could mean for eye care, with Chief Executive of the Association of Optometrists Adam Sampson. Maddie + Triggs is the latest children's TV show that puts visual impairment at its heart. Maddie, a 7-year old visually impaired girl and her pet dog Triggs explore the world around them through sound and music. It is created by Irish studio Turnip + Duck and available on CBeebies, BBC Sounds and Ireland's national broadcaster RTÉ. P...
Jul 08, 2025•19 min
In Touch hears from the RNIB about their plans to participate in the Government's consultation on the Benefits Bill. They describe their position on the bill as it stands and how they will involve the voices of blind and partially sighted people in any consultations. With Wimbledon 2025 underway, In Touch looks at grassroots visually impaired tennis and a Yorkshire league, set up by an enthusiastic exponent of the adapted sport. The LTA outlines how visually impaired people can get involved with...
Jul 01, 2025•19 min
The government have published their Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill, but there is growing concern among visually impaired people about what all of this actually means for their benefits. In Touch reconvenes some people in the know to try to provide information about what the bill, in its current form, means for visually impaired people. Presenter: Peter White Producer: Beth Hemmings Production Coordinator: Paul Holloway Website image description: Peter White sits smiling i...
Jun 24, 2025•19 min
Pocklington Lodge is the last of the Thomas Pocklington Trust's housing complexes. The charity plans to sell the property, as a result of changes in their strategy and expertise over the years. In Touch visits Pocklington Lodge to hear from some of the residents, who fear what the sale of their complex could mean for the future of their homes. In Touch also visits Pocklington's headquarters to chat through reasons behind the decision with CEO, Charles Colquhoun. Presenter: Peter White Producer: ...
Jun 17, 2025•19 min
New College Worcester, who are a residential school and provider of specialist education for visually impaired children, has launched a campaign seeking wider government support for the provision of specialist education. The campaign takes a broad approach, asking government for greater support across both mainstream and specialist education settings. The College Principal, Rachel Perks, provides details of their campaign, along with some other signatories and parents. Presenter: Peter White Pro...
Jun 10, 2025•19 min
NASA tells In Touch about a condition that affects the vision of around 70% of their astronauts. It is called SANS and although the space agency aren't currently seeing hugely negative affects to their astronaut's vision upon returning to Earth, they are concerned about what could happen once we begin longer-term space exploration, with this being considered a 'red risk' of reaching Mars. Dr Sheri Wells-Jensen is a huge space enthusiast and within her role as a Linguistics professor at Bowling G...
Jun 03, 2025•14 min
In Touch invites three stand-up comedians - Jake Donaldson, Sydney May and Lizzy Lenco - to discuss how they use their blindness as a source of material in their comedy routines. For more information on our three comedians and where to see them live: Jake Donaldson: linktr.ee/jakedonaldson Sydney May: sydneymay.co.uk and Sydney May on social media. Lizzy Lenco on social media. Presenter: Peter White Producer: Beth Hemmings Production Coordinator: Jack Thomason Website image description: Peter Wh...
May 27, 2025•19 min
The European Accessibility Act is a new piece of legislation that will apply to EU member countries from the end of June, but what effects might it have on the UK given that it is no longer an EU member state. The Act covers a wide range of products and services that blind and partially sighted people use daily. To help analyse this are Antoine Fobe, head of advocacy and campaigns with the European Blind Union and Léonie Watson, Director of accessibility consultancy and auditing company TetraLog...
May 20, 2025•19 min
The Association of Optometrists will be asking MPs to amend what they regard as an outdated administrative task that is delaying thousands of patients getting their certificates of visual impairment. These certificates allow people to get access to essential care services after a diagnosis, but at the moment only ophthalmologists can sign them off. Adam Sampson is the Association's Chief Executive and he tells In Touch about the situation and about how thousands of optometrists across the countr...
May 13, 2025•19 min
Times are hard for many charities, and those in the sight loss sector are no exception. In a previous episode of In Touch, we heard how Guide Dogs needed to take action to avoid a deficit of some twenty million pounds. So what form will that action take and what does it mean for jobs, services and waiting lists? We're joined by Guide Dogs CEO, Andrew Lennox who tells us about the charity's plans to deal with the challenges it faces and he responds to concerns being raised. Presenter: Peter White...
May 06, 2025•19 min
Matt Wadsworth has, for the last decade or so, been working to make fellow visually impaired people's access to the food industry much easier. He developed the concept of Good Food Talks, which is now available as a free app, and it can provide a raft of restaurant menus in an accessible format and on the go. Matt has been working with food data management company Nutritics, to reach more providers in the industry. Nutritics are currently conducting research, that aims to better understand visua...
Apr 29, 2025•19 min
Visually impaired producer of the children's television programme Mixmups, Rebecca Atkinson has created a new concept for customising television access. It is called Ultra Access and is currently available online for episodes of Mixmups. Rebecca, along with Kate Dimbleby from Stornaway, who are the interactive video company providing the technology for Ultra Access, tell In Touch whether they think this could become the future of interactive access to television. Sound of a Masterpiece is an alb...
Apr 22, 2025•13 min
Over the past nine months, the RNIB, the UK's largest charity supporting blind and partially sighted people, has made some of their staff redundant and, more widely, has made changes to some of their services. They have also recently published their ambitious 10-year strategy, that aims to improve the lives of blind and partially sighted people. The charity's CEO Matt Stringer provides an update on the changes implemented and what the future of the organisation might look like. Presenter: Peter ...
Apr 15, 2025•19 min
In Touch dedicates this programme to the late Dr Fred Reid. His long career in academia and wider achievements make him one of the great blind all-rounders, having contributed to national campaigns that made a real difference to the lives of many blind and partially sighted people. He was also a historian, author, sportsman and lecturer at the University of Warwick. Fred tells his own story, in a revisit to a dedicated programme from 2018, along with people who worked with him over the years and...
Apr 08, 2025•19 min
In Touch returns to the issue of welfare reform, and how the proposed changes to benefits are likely to affect blind and partially sighted people. A panel of guests, comprising of Dominic Milne, The RNIB's Legal Rights Officer and Kevin Mulhern, visually impaired journalist and broadcaster, whose been covering the issue of benefits for visually impaired people for the best part of five decades, provide general information on what is important to know but they also aim to answer visually impaired...
Apr 01, 2025•19 min
The charity Retina UK are seeking feedback from people with inherited sight loss conditions to learn how they can best support this community and feed into medical research. The charity primarily supports people who are living with genetic conditions, often with a progressive decline in sight. Some of these conditions are well known, such as Retinitis Pigmentosa, Usher Syndrome and Stargardt Disease and others are more rare, such as Leber congenital amaurosis. To participate in Retina UK's Sight...
Mar 25, 2025•19 min
The government has announced its plans to reform the current welfare system with the aim of saving billions. In Touch has brought together a panel of guests to try to outline how the government's plans, outlined in a Green Paper, might affect the benefits that visually impaired people receive. Presenter: Peter White Producer: Beth Hemmings Production Coordinator: Liz Poole Website image description: Peter White sits smiling in the centre of the image and he is wearing a dark green jumper. Above ...
Mar 18, 2025•14 min
How much do you know about deafblindness? If your answer is "very little", it seems you're in good company. Such is the lack of research on the condition that the charity Deafblind UK has collaborated with Birmingham City University to establish a new education and research centre. Said to be the first of its kind, its aim is to both undertake influential research and raise general awareness of deafblindness. It will also equip junior researchers and others with the knowledge and skills to becom...
Mar 11, 2025•19 min
In a recent episode of In Touch, we interviewed Sandi Wassmer, who at the time, we believed to be the UK's only blind female CEO. Among the very positive responses we received were a couple pointing us in the direction of two other blind women in the top job, and who would make excellent guests. Always keen to respond to listeners' suggestions, we were delighted when Agnes Lunny and Halima Begum, CEOs of Positive Futures and Oxfam GB respectively, agreed to join us. They tell us about their jour...
Mar 04, 2025•19 min
In an episode broadcast last summer, the RNIB's CEO, Matt Stringer joined us to discuss financial pressures facing the charity and the consequent need to save millions of pounds. Since then, we have invited RNIB back to talk to us about their subsequent plans, but they declined, citing confidentiality issues. Meanwhile, In Touch has received information about a consultation exercise, said to be causing concern about jobs and future service provision among RNIB staff. We speak to Steve Tyler, who...
Feb 25, 2025•19 min
Natalie Doig is fascinated by myths and legends. Indeed, such is her passion for that which is "weird, wonderful and a little off kilter" that she stepped back from her career working in the disability rights sector to make a podcast about it. Called "Weird in the Wade", a recent episode explored the tale of "Blind George of Anstey". Natalie joins us to discuss Blind George and the issues the story raises about how blindness is perceived. Also joining the discussion are Dr Rod Michalko and Profe...
Feb 18, 2025•19 min
Back in November 2021, In Touch looked at accessibility problems with touch screen payment card machines. Fast forward to 2025 and the amount of contact we're still getting about this suggests very little progress has been made. In this episode, we talk to representatives from RNIB and the hospitality and finance industries to ask why card machines are still so high on our list of accessibility gripes. We also hear what manufacturers of these machines have to say on the matter, and we report on ...
Feb 11, 2025•19 min
What are the things you don't know that you don't know?! That was the question posed to us by blind listener Lexi Hibberd who told us that there were aspects of everyday life like eye contact and other body language which hadn't been explained to her. What else then, she asked, didn't she know? We were so intrigued by Lexi's question that we thought we should explore it further. Joining us to do just that is blind writer and broadcaster Lyndall Bywater, audio description writer Liz Gutman, Richa...
Feb 04, 2025•14 min
The treatment of Geographic Atrophy (GA) or late stage dry age-related macular degeneration as it's also known, is proving to be a pretty tough nut to crack. Hopes had been high that a treatment available in the USA would also be approved for use here in the UK. However, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has rejected the application. Ed Holloway, Chief Executive of the Macular Society and Bill Best who has lived with GA for many years join us to discuss the MHRA deci...
Jan 28, 2025•19 min
In Touch assesses the findings of a report that looks at the ways special educational needs care is being delivered to the children who need it. The report gives little to no mention of the challenges of specific groups of pupils and so, with the help of Rachael Hewett of the Vision Impairment Centre for Teaching and Research at Birmingham University and the Thomas Pocklington Trust's Tara Chattaway, we review the implications of a system in crisis for visually impaired pupils. When it is your t...
Jan 21, 2025•19 min
Where do you go if you need to repair your Perkins brailler? That is the type-writer like machine that allows braillists to produce writing for school, work or leisure. Recent publicity that the UK’s last certified visually impaired repairer of the Perkins, Alan Thorpe, is looking for an apprentice to continue his work, may have left the impression that there's no one else who can repair it for you. This is not the case. We speak to the Royal National College for the Blind (RNC) about the repair...
Jan 14, 2025•19 min
The Macular Society has a new CEO, Ed Holloway. With Macular disease being the most common form of sight loss in the UK, its important that the charity continue their work in supporting people with the condition, but also push towards more research and the discovery of new treatments. Ed Holloway describes what his plans are in these areas and other ambitions he has for the future of the charity. Siloton are a medical equipment manufacturing company that also have big ambitions within this space...
Jan 07, 2025•19 min
Last year, we heard from two blind women about their experiences of living through the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas. In Touch has invited them back, just over a year on, to hear how their lives have been impacted since the war began. Dalal Al-Taji is from Khan Yunis in the south of the Gaza Strip and Heather Stone lives in the northern area of Tel Aviv in Israel. They speak frankly about how their lives have changed dramatically over the past year and how they are dealing with the un...
Dec 31, 2024•19 min
