In Touch

For many years, we've been used to in-stadium commentaries on football matches for people with no or only a little sight, but Crystal Palace have become the first Premier League club to offer another permanent high-tech accessibility feature to their partially sighted fans. It is called the GiveVision device. It provides people who have some remaining vision with an enhanced view of the game, up close to their eye. Fans Susan Vernon and Phil Green tell us of their experiences using the headset device at Selhurst Park stadium and Joanna Liddington from GiveVision describes the kind of interest they have received from other clubs.

Couple Emma Tracey and Robin Spinks allow us to tag along as they attend their regular cold water swimming spot. They describe the benefits they experience from cold water submersion, along with some of the more specific benefits of this activity for visually impaired people.

Presenter: Peter White

Melanie Barratt is a decorated Paralympic swimmer, having won two Golds, two Silvers and a Bronze at the Atlanta and Sydney games. She has had a long career, but her most recent feat took her away from the swimming pool and into the English Channel. Melanie recently completed the 33km swim and made history while doing it, as she is thought to be the first blind woman to have finished. Melanie tells In Touch about how she prepared for the challenge (which involved regularly dipping into a barrel of freezing cold water), about the methods of how she did it as a blind person and about the health benefits that she believes cold water swimming provides.

Presenter: Peter White

New research done at Anglia Ruskin University's vision and eye research unit, suggests that people who lose their sight in early life, or indeed are born without sight, have more difficulty in judging the distance of a sound source, than those who lose their sight later in life. This seemingly counterintuitive idea piqued our interest and so Professor Shahina Pardhan, the director of the unit and lead author of the study, explains their findings, why they matter and what they plan to do with them.

The Paralympic Games are over, and so we thought we'd check-in with swimming twins Scarlett and Eliza Humphrey once more, following their Games debut. They tell us about their impressions of their first games and about their aspirations for reaching the Los Angeles 2028.

Presenter: Peter White

The Paris Paralympic Games have got off to an explosive start, with many of our visually impaired athletes earning gold, silver and bronze medals. In Touch speaks to gold medal cyclist Lizzie Jordan and silver medal rower Sam Murray. We also speak to David Clarke, who is totally blind, and was appointed as the CEO of Paralympics GB fairly recently. David reflects on the legacy of the games and discusses the levels of low-vision athletes at this years games and how the issue of the lack of sporting opportunities for visually impaired youngsters can be addressed.

Presenter: Peter White

Steve Darling is not the first visually impaired MP, but he is the latest, after winning Torbay in Devon for the Liberal Democrats in July's general election. In Touch speaks to Steve about the excitements and challenges of taking up his new role in the Mother of parliaments.

In Touch visits an archaeological dig site in Cookham, where an 8th century monastery is being excavated. Our main interest there, aside from the various skull and bone discoveries, is visually impaired Jonathan Charmley. Jonathan has always had a keen interest in history and decided to begin an archaeology course at university. During his studies, he lost most of his vision as the result of a brain tumour. In Touch finds out what performing archaeology is like for Jonathan since losing his vision.

Presenter: Peter White

Everyone has to put their trust in other people from time to time but when you are blind or partially sighted, do you have to do it more often than most? For example, when asking a stranger for help on the street or in a train station, when purchasing something in a shop and in our relationships. To help us analyse this topic are three visually impaired people with differing career backgrounds, relationships and life experiences, who also acknowledge there are many times when they have to take a bit of a gamble on when and who to trust. They are Richard Lane, Denise Leigh and Kelly Barton.

Presenter: Peter White

Tony Sheeran tells In Touch about a recent incident when he was attempting to book a self-guided walking holiday on the Isle of Wight, along with his sighted wife and guide dog. Sheeran is an experienced walker, having conquered Mount Fuji and the Capital Ring, but when he came to book with travel operator Macs Adventure, he was initially refused the booking.

Recently, the In Touch team released a documentary called Fifty-Fifty Vision. Within that, we meet visually impaired 16-year-old Sasha McBride, who describes her career ambitions - getting into medicine. We thought we'd bring her together with someone she looks up to, someone who has the same form of albinism as Sasha and is currently practicing medicine as an NHS GP, Dr Oscar Duke.

Presenter: Peter White

In Touch has been hearing that many local Talking Newspapers are experiencing long delays linked to the postal service. Talking Newspapers are an essential service to blind and partially sighted people, as it keeps people informed of localised events and news. Listeners access a TN via recorded readings of the local papers by volunteers. The recordings are then put onto the listeners preferred format - be that a USB stick, a CD or even a cassette tape - and then are delivered to the listener's front door. Under Royal Mail's Articles for the Blind scheme, these are supposed to be delivered via first class mail, but the TNs are reporting that this is not happening. We hear from a number of local TNs and from the Talking Newspaper Federation.

It will soon be time for the Paralympics, the worlds biggest celebration of disability sport. As a warm up to the event, In Touch meets Eliza and Scarlet Humphrey who are twins, are both totally blind and are both competing in swimming at the Paralympics 2024.

Presenter: Peter White

In Touch has learnt about changes happening to the RNIB's Technology for Life service that will result in major changes to how the service is delivered, and may result in staff redundancies amongst the team that has many visually impaired employees. This change is separate from a ten-year proposed plan of changes that we recently spoke to the charity's Chief Executive Matt Stringer about. These included a need for cost savings of around £10 million and may also result in redundancies for staff.

The world now has a blind Barbie doll. Influencer, broadcaster and model Lucy Edwards brought her into the studio to be introduced to the In Touch team and to tell us what she means for representation. We analyse more widely whether representation of this form is of benefit to disabled children with Rebecca Atkinson, who founded the Toy Like Me campaign. The campaign began as a call on toy companies globally to become more inclusive of disability within their products. Rebecca also began her own disabled-led children's brand, with her Channel 5 pre-school children's programme 'Mixmups', which has disabled characters.

Presenter: Peter White

Researchers from Moorfields Eye Hospital and University College London (UCL) have identified markers in the blood that may predict which Glaucoma patients are likely to continue losing vision despite treatment that aims to lower the pressure that causes their sight loss. Professor Ted Garway-Heath tells In Touch more about their clinical trial.

On In Touch, we've always tried to be careful not to raise false hopes about new eye treatments, but occasionally its too irresistible to not take a peek into the future and look at how modern technology might help us. Developments such as Artificial Intelligence are happening so rapidly, even in the world of eye care. Pete Thomas is the Executive Director of Digital Development at Moorfield's Eye Hospital and he tells In Touch about the application of AI which is already having an effect on the rate of diagnosis of eye conditions, and therefore the speed with which they can be treated.

Presenter: Peter White