Presented to LWUG AGM April 6^th2009 at the Lifehouse

1. This is our Third formal Annual General meeting for the Liverpool Wheelchair User Group (LWUG).  I want to take the opportunity to really thank everyone on the LWUG Team, particularly Deb Lynch as Chair since Summer 2008 and Alma Lunt as Treasurer, but it is all about teamwork and you never know when your suggesting an idea or encouraging someone can make all the difference.

 I apologise now if I fail to mention a particular event, activity, or person.   As Secretary over  the last  part of year I apologise for times, I am sure, of getting things wrong, and probably often, especially in the busyness of life, failing to listen enough. Every contribution is important, but it is in learning to work together, encouraging each other as well as doing, and if/when we get things wrong, dusting ourselves off, learning from the experience, and moving forward, that we will be most effective for wheelchair users, our support services and access to our City.

 We have our times of fun, even celebration, but shouldn’t be surprised at times of challenge, considering what we are taking on, in order to make a difference

2.  Even in the busyness of the moment the current projects and challenges, it is important to briefly remind us of our history. As a group we started meeting in the summer of 2004 under the leadership and chairing of <personnamew:ston>Rick Grainger. The Group has been active since,   although there have been continual difficulties in finding a suitable venue. LWUG had been meeting at Mossley Hill Hospital, more recently a room in the Livingstone Drive Health Centre, Aigburth, and since Sept 2007 we are now based in the Lifehouse, Brunswick Business Park, and grateful of the hospitality and welcome from everyone at the Lifehouse.

3. The LWUG received a Grant of £5000, an ESF Social Risk Capital Grant through the Merseyside Disability Federation, based at Greenbank College  in the Summer 2006 and a revised Constitution was adopted in Sept 2006.

4. Looking back, we need to remind ourselves of the journey we have made. Our main focus has been tackling the horrendous state that the NHS Wheelchair Service had been in, trying to run on a starvation budget out of cramped, unsatisfactory building at Mossley Hill Hospital Site, paralysed for many months at a time by exhausted budgets.

5. We need to continue to maintain awareness and the importance of a well resourced Wheelchair Service, both amongst Senior PCT managers, politicians and the wider public. This means not just a basic         budget, and suitable accommodation for the wheelchair team, but opportunity to review future designs of wheelchair with wheelchair users, better options with the voucher scheme, monitoring reviews of people with complex seating needs and working towards further reducing waiting times. Can I take the opportunity of LWUG to thank Bill Moran, Louise Adcock and her team for their hard work and commitment to a continuing ‘work in progress’.

6. Much of the energy during the year has involved contributing to the Liverpool Taxi Access for All Campaign.

We have  learnt a great deal about working together, that indignation changes very little apart from our blood pressure, and learning to be effective   

 As a reminder, the basic situation is:

·         Wheelchairs for many people are getting more complex and larger, especially longer and  studies and our own experiences support this. In Liverpool, use of hackney cabs with the exception of a few metrocabs, is currently still  restricted to only the Traditional London Cab, by the Licensing Committee at the Town Hall, creating unnecessary difficulties and safety issues for  disabled people who need to remain in their wheelchairs when travelling.

·         Whilst the traditional London TX cab has lots of many innovative ideas, there are limitations, especially the steep ramp and restricted passenger space inside, creating strain and difficulty for cab driver to point of many wheelchair users experiencing not being turned inside and securing the wheelchair because it is so difficult , and for some , with larger wheelchairs, physically unable to turn the  occupied chair in the space available.

·         The Peugeot E7 cab is successfully tried and tested throughout most of the country, in fact licensed as a hackney cab in over 80% of the UK. LWUG, and many other groups and individuals  would  desperately like to see it in Liverpool as well. Crucially it has a larger passenger area  which makes manoeuvring larger wheelchairs possible that are impossible in the smaller TX cab.     

·         The Licensing Committee through its chair bizarrely have chosen to ignore , not just our requests, but deny the unsafe travel many wheelchair users especially those with larger chairs are forced to cope with.

·         We have used all the channels open to us, writing to the Licensing Office, attending Licensing Committee Meetings, written many articles in the press, on radio, even TV, arranged demonstrations of the Peugeot E7, and now releasing a leaflet explaining our story which I hope you will all take form this meeting or contact LWUG for copies to distribute to taxi drivers, councillors, other wheelchair users.

·         LWUG and MCIL have issued joint press releases and contributed to a Judicial Review of the failings of Liverpool City Council to make an  adequate evaluation of dangerous travel forced on Wheelchair users by their continued refusal to date to license the tried and tested Peugeot E7 cab .  The Hearing needed an individual to apply,  so Alma Lunt took up the challenge with the full support of LWUG , MCIL and many other individuals. It will be held during Sumer 2009 in the High Court in London. Our every hope is that Councillors and officers will see the sense and justice of our campaign before then.    

·         As part of the Lifehouse package agreed with Liverpool PCT and Social Services, www.liverpoollifehouse.com, the website for the Lifehouse has finally come on line. It  has been slow and disappointing to date, but still a good start to  actually have the agreement for a website outside of the rather unwieldy www.Liverpool.gov.uk and www.Liverpoolpct.nhs.uk ‘front doors’.  It still has a lot of potential and could be  developed as a real boost to having better accessible information about our support services in Liverpool. If you have any ideas, the Lifehouse team especially Lil Garland would like to hear from you.

7. We have also had time to develop our own LWUG publicity, spreading the message, during the  year with : 

• LWUG Leaflet - have you any ideas on new places we can distribute it?

• Starting the development of a  LWUG website

    ( www.lwug.co.uk ). A work in progress, needs your ideas.

• An email box ( lwug@hotmail.co.uk ), a door that quite a few organisations have used to contact LWUG at present more junk mail than enquiries.

• and a LWUG mobile phone ( 07939 450849 ).

We need to continue develop our skills and confidence in working with the mass media, although we have had opportunities with Granada Reports and Radio Merseyside.

Representations have developed greatly during the year.  Especially with the exciting start of the Liverpool LINk.

The opportunities to get involved  to scrutinise, comment  on and contribute to our Health and Social Services are enormous.

These are a work in progress, with many parts of Liverpool PCT , Social Services and other public bodies still not geared up to  ‘valuing service users’ by helping service users access to information, reports and with a few creative exceptions, still without procedures to reimburse service users for  travel expenses. This has got to change as a priority     

It is therefore all the more important that we at LWUG have just heard we are still able to cover approved travel expenses  needed by LWUG members , with no one left out of pocket. We have been successful with a bid from April  2009 for a Grassroots Grant through Liverpool Council for Voluntary Service.

The range of groups asking for representation, when you put them together is amazing, and we would encourage anyone to come along and find out the interesting opportunities available.

In no particular order

·        Joint  Commissioning Group for People with a Physical and/or Sensory Impairment ( PSI),

-  current representatives-Jean , Alma, Debs, John B

·        Personal Health Plans- Debs

·        Corporate Access Group- Jean P

·        Liverpool LINks Group, John B and Alma Lunt

·        Adaptations Forum- Jean P

·        CEDAS Advisory Board- John B, Debs, Jean

·        Disability Network – Jean , Alma

·        50 plus user group- Jean

·        Lime Court User Group- John Austin

Apologies if we have missed any group out!  Who are u in contact with- let us know?-

8. What of the future?   I have previously used a picture or an analogy of a tree in the past . We started, from seeds sown by a handful of people, a Liverpool Wheelchair User Group has started, determined to make a difference. The analogy is still relevant. Today we are linked to a much wider network of people.

Do not be despondent, if you had the vision of hundreds of people involved by now. It is important that we carry on laying down the foundations of good teamwork and collaboration , growing and developing each others skills and confidence.

One - trees grow slowly, and we all know of people who haven’t got the opportunity to physically join us, or the energy, or who are just struggling with daily life and the challenge, still, of identifying and getting the support needed for everyday life, let alone  many options for recreation and a social life!  

Two - we need to  always remember that we are not the only ‘tree on the block’ and can change things and make things happen by collaborating , even just , I say just, listening to and encouraging others in other  representative groups or individuals around the City who are perhaps getting battle weary.

Three - trees even at a young age and not looking very big, can actually be surprisingly robust, and support many other growing things around them to flourish. This should always be high on our priority. Lets hope for instance that at the end of 2008, we have a City of <placew:ston><cityw:ston>Culture that is more accessible at the end, than at the beginning.

<personnamew:ston>Jean Price, ever on the ball (and often well ahead of the rest of  us!) has noted that the Government’s big plan for local government is to have Neighbourhood Services with Neighbourhood Representation, and needing to get a neighbourhood voice for wheelchair users. We may find that some people are more confident or comfortable in being active for wheelchair users in their own patch, and we have to look at  new creative ways of supporting and equipping them, as well as working hard in the Advisory Boards and the recently re-launched Joint Commissioning Group.  

Key areas for LWUG  

• Pushing for greater and effective consultation. Getting more service users involved in Advisory Boards and groups with the PCT and Social Services.

• Developing our skills in presenting,  our case across to other disabled people,  the wider public, senior managers in Health and Social Care and politicians including regularly using newspapers, radio, internet and even TV to get our messages across.

• Negotiating for a greater  range and diversity of chairs and special seating to be available, and for service users to have greater involvement in testing and advising on designs and suitability of different models

• To keep up contact city wide, regionally and nationally with other wheelchair user and disability representative groups

• Allowing for social times and events for LWUG members and friends- Someone said recently, I don’t want to spend all my time battling over services or talking about my medical conditions, important though they are.  

  We have no wishing wells or magic wands to wave. We cannot do everything, be everywhere, guarantee results, and even if some of the things we do , we don’t do particularly well, by some expectations, but as <personnamew:ston>Rick Grainger passed on to us: Together everyone achieves more   (TEAM).  Looking back, a lot more has been achieved than we sometimes realise in the last year, and these can be robust foundations for the future.

<personnamew:ston>John Bruce

Secretary LWUG

April 2009