In Touch

Lucy Edwards spent six years perfecting her beauty routine after she lost her sight, and has passed on all she learnt in a book called The Blind Beauty Guide. She gives fellow blind journalist Emma Tracey her best makeup tips.

Presenter: Peter White

Pictured, from left to right: Emma Tracey and Lucy Edwards standing in the In Touch studio.

The Medical Practitioners Tribunal has found Bobby Qureshi put his own financial interests above the interests of his visually impaired patients. Qureshi was medical director at the London Eye Hospital, now under different management, implanting a new type of lens to patients who have macular degeneration. The tribunal found patients did not receive enough information on the risks prior to having the procedure.

Chris Albert is a member of the very successful Blind Sailing team which has come away from a regatta in Canada with the World Championship trophy. He describes why Blind Sailing gives him some of the freedom back that he lost when he lost his sight.

Presenter: Peter White

Two visually-impaired opera singers tell us their stories.

New Zealander Joanne Roughton Arnold chose singing opera over playing the violin. Alan Pingarrón from Mexico is taking part in a Royal Opera House training programme.

Presenter: Peter White

22-year-old Matthew Shiffrin contacted Lego to ask them to make instructions for their construction sets accessible to visually-impaired people. The blind Lego enthusiast had been devising his own, with the help of a friend, for ten years and making them available on his own website.

The toy company has met the challenge and released instructions in a downloadable format for screenreaders, for braille, and to listen to directly online.

Peter White speaks to Matthew Shiffrin about why he loves Lego so much when it’s not historically been accessible to him, and also to Fenella Blaize-Charity from Lego about its plans.

12-year-old Hester is this week’s studio guest, and she and her Mum Sarah, try out the new instructions with mixed success.

Hester also shares her recent experience of visiting a blind school in Ethiopia.

Presenter: Peter White

Pictured: Sarah, Hester and Peter in the Radio 4 studio in Salford.

This is the second episode of our series examining the times in our lives as blind people when we are faced with a loss of control and power entirely caused by our visual impairment. Both programmes look at ways of gathering yourself, restoring your dignity, suppressing that sense of powerlessness, and giving you back the control everyone needs to be functioning adults. Situations like feeling loss of control because of access, orientation and/or mobility.

Presenter: Peter White

This is the first episode of a two-part series examining the times in our lives as blind people when we are faced with a loss of control and power entirely caused by our visual impairment.

Both programmes look at ways of gathering yourself, restoring your dignity, suppressing that sense of powerlessness, and giving you back the control everyone needs to be functioning adults.

Situations like feeling loss of control because of access, orientation and/or mobility.

Inability to take part in a meaningful way in activities: moving house, financial transactions, managing forms and paperwork.

Our thanks to everybody we spoke to during researching these programmes.

Presenter: Peter White

Guillermo Robles took the pizza company Domino's to court because he claimed he was unable to access their website and app to order his meal of choice using the software that reads the screen aloud to him. He also claimed he was unable to take advantage of their discounts, and build his own pizza. But Domino's argues that the Americans with Disabilities act, the Ada, pre-dates the introduction of websites that was passed in nineteen-ninety, and that in any case making its website accessible would place an undue burden on the company.

Guillermo lost his case, but then won on appeal in a federal court. But now Domino's Pizza says that because lower courts can't agree on the online responsibilities of companies, the US Supreme court must provide some clarity.

Quartz journalist Ephrat Livni gives us the facts of the case, and Chris Danielsen from the US National Foundation for the Blind explains why this case is so important at this particular point in time.

Presenter: Peter White

Michael Tupper from Clitheroe in Lancashire tells Peter White about legal action he is taking against East Lancashire Hospitals Trust because they aren’t giving him details on appointments and other information in his preferred format, large print. Michael is being supported by RNIB, whose legal adviser, Sam Fothergill, provides us with the legal background of the case.

We also hear from LookFest, which is a weekend festival in Hereford for blind and partially sighted young people. Reporter Lucy Edwards brings us the atmosphere and chats to parents and their children.

Finally, Christina Keiller who has two sensory impairments, joins us from Brighton and explains the challenges she faces of being both visually impaired and having hyperacusis.

Presenter: Peter White

RNIB and manufacturer GEO are developing a smart meter that will be accessible for blind and partially sighted people. Audrey Gallagher from Energy UK tells Peter White about the meter and its accessibility features.

We also hear from John Worsfold from RNIB who tells us about how the meter has been tested.

The Department for Transport is conducting surveys on textured paving. Ann Frye, formerly head of the DfT accessibility unit, tells us how textured paving got started in the UK and Europe and the points she would make if she took part in one of the surveys.

Finally, Dan Brown from the Office for Rail and Roads tells Peter about improvements visually impaired passengers will receive when travelling by train.

Presenter: Peter White

Caroline Casey has been campaigning for more disability inclusion for the past decade. Earlier this year she took her cause to Davos – the summit for big corporations. She wants 500 CEO’s to sign up to making and acting on one commitment around disability for their company.

James McCarthy from Blind in Business, a charity working to boost the employment rates of visually impaired people at entry level, says recruiters must be incentivised to increase disabled recruitment.

Presenter: Peter White