A blind bit of notice in County Durham

4 November 2008

The ‘Durham Sight Loss Survey Partnership’, made up of Action for Blind People, Blind Life in Durham and County Durham Society for the Blind and Partially Sighted has published new research this week. The research reveals what blind and partially sighted people in County Durham really think about the support and services they have recently received.

Picture of a woman talking to a service user

The research report, funded by the National Lottery’s ‘Awards for All’ shows that many felt satisfied with most of the services they have accessed; however there are still issues for concern. These concerns are:

Lack of emotional support at the time of diagnosis and afterwards – less than half received this, yet rated it their most important need

Poor provision of accessible information about services and equipment available

An apparent lack of coordination between service organisations, considerable gaps in provision of needs

Less than half had any awareness of the improvements to independence that rehabilitation services can provide and there was frustration about poor appreciation of the needs and difficulties of visually impaired people when using public and retail services.

Cathie Burke, Action Coordinator said: “Some of these issues identified in this study have resource implications, but much can be done by improved inter-agency working and adoption of good practices from elsewhere in the UK. The report provides an important framework within which to review service provision and plan for the future in collaboration with other organisations”

The three organisations are hosting a Stakeholder Presentation Meeting at County Hall on Tuesday 4th November and will be reviewing the report with service providers in the County. They will actively consider the recommendations published in the report that can be implemented in conjunction with colleagues from other organisations that are involved

Download Word document Download the Word version of the report (326 KB)
Download the large print Word version of the report (314 KB)
Download PDF document Download the pdf version of the report (721 KB)
Download Text document Download the text only version of the report (86 KB)