There can be few more heart-warming ways to spend a day than among the members being cared for, trained and hosted at Blind Veterans UK centre nestled on the coast near Brighton.
The centre itself is a landmark for the local area and emerges from the South Downs hillside like a giant art deco-styled aircraft. The building gravitates around a central staircase column. From it lead off five floors of activity and residential rooms that spread along its wings. On each landing is a themed seating and viewing area which looks out across the English Channel through giant semi-circular glass windows.
The building, which celebrates its 80th birthday this year, was purpose-built by the then St Dunstan’s charity, and includes a range of practical features for its blind and visually impaired residents. Today the centre boasts 23 residential rooms for members who can see their days out as permanent residents should they wish. Another floor, of nine rooms, is set aside for members and their families to take respite holidays. Here they can use the centre’s facilities, rest or recuperate. A further eight rooms are for the rehabilitation of members who may have the need of medical care, low vision training or a host of other purposes which they can complete while living in a safe and supported environment.
As well at its beautiful seaside setting the centre offers aromatherapy, craft, concerts, films, a variety of clubs and visiting entertainers. These are backed with a variety of rooms, which are equipped for activities as diverse as blind sports, pottery and producing radio plays. There is full medical care on hand backed by visits from physios, chiropodists and all manner of services. The centre boasts a well-equipped gym suitable for the visually impaired and other disabilities such as wheelchair users. Also on site is a swimming pool which is heated and features innovative ideas such as a hoseline guide which enables elderly blind swimmers to use the pool independently.
Although started to care for World War One casualties the charity now finds itself caring for many elderly ex-service people who are suffering the effects of old age rather than war. All of the rooms within the centre are superbly equipped, care areas are staffed 24/7 by qualified nursing and care personnel.
The centre covers a multitude of needs and is a mixture of residential and care home with sports, art and crafts, dining and leisure centre all rolled into one. The overriding impression is one of very positive elderly people enjoying their time there. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the arts and crafts area. Instructor, James Cowland, explains that when members attend a session they are asked what they used to like to do. The scope of activities is very broad ranging from mosaics and rudimentary woodwork through to fine line drawing, sculpture and even lathe work. The emphasis is on enabling not highlighting disability.
Those in the workshop may be daily visitors, on respite holiday or residents and can make items of their own choosing or make part of a larger project. The centre recently took part in a bird box making project for a national garden show. Cowland explains that while some of the work is sold to help pay for materials or kept it is the process that’s most important. Participation, involvement and working with others is the point not the finished product. ‘Some are here more for the social element,’ he says. The room has a wide variety of low vision aids but Cowland is still surprised by what can be achieved and says that developing strategies for the members is as important as low vision aids. ‘Learning how to work your way through a project in a tactile way.’
Activities emphasise enabling instead of highlighting disability
Care is a big element of the centre and the first floor is home to the most medical area of the site. Here 24-hour nursing is on hand for those with more complex needs who are recovering or recuperating. This could be healing and wound care or a course of physiotherapy. Care lead, David Evans, who has been at the centre for nearly 20 years, explains that care, to the 23 rooms on the first floor and a further nine on the third floor, is provided 365 days a year, 24/7. While some members may only stay a short time Evans says others may see their life out here. In all the care team has 52 care assistants, nine nurses and six care leads looking after between 30 and 40 patients. Applications to stay at the centre are assessed by a panel and take recommendation from BVUK’s Rehabilitation Officers for the Visually Impaired (ROVIs).
While many visit for a short time the centre is home to residential members. Some residents have lived at the centre for 10 years while four are over 100 years of age. One 102-year-old gentlemen still attends regimental dinners, says Evans. The building has 82 rooms in all and with daily visitors the team could find itself looking after nearly 120 people in a day. They are all encouraged to take part in the activities provided from dominos to tai chi. ‘We are more like a care village,’ says Evans.
Younger members often choose to stay in an annexe close by which allows more independent living and does not have residential staff but provides access to the care and facilities at the main centre.
Blind Veterans UK has always prided itself on taking care into the community and its fleet of vehicles is used to transport members to and from hospital. As it has access to nurses and physios it often finds hospitals are happy to release patients to the centre who might not be able to return to their own home. Evans is visibly proud of the equipment the centre boasts: full hoist systems from bed to bathroom, extensive wet rooms and call systems, low vision technology throughout and patient tracking systems. Every room has Alexa, voice-activated, technology and the centre uses iPhones and tablet computers where suitable. He says technology is enabling great strides in allowing BVUK to look after their members better. The organisation is working with companies such as Orcam and Samsung’s In Your Pocket, on new innovations. ‘We like members to feel that it’s their home, while they are here,’ he says, adding that when outside care professionals visit they are impressed by the quality at the facility.
Tablet computers are used to help the visually impaired at the centre
Paul Hartley, the ROVI lead, says emphasis on community work is increasing within the organisation allowing more care to be delivered out in local areas. With more than 30% of the membership unable to get to one of BVUK’s three centres, he says: ‘BVUK doesn’t want to oversee a postcode lottery. It’s always crucial to work with local services.’ He wants to see more work taking place in people’s homes or at regional events members can get to. These might be low vision events or simply social meetings and activities to tackle isolation.
Despite that move of emphasis, the work of the centres continues and many BVUK members are welcomed to the Brighton, and other, hubs. ‘The team I lead runs 32 intro weeks in this centre, there are 12 people on each of those plus partners, carers and holiday people. Those numbers are increasing.’ Members will be brought in, their needs assessed and low vision aids selected for the member to be trained on and to take home with them to aid independent living.
Hartley is also an advocate for the low vision worker. As a visually impaired person himself he trained in visual impairment and is keen to get others to train as ROVIs. ‘We are as rare as hen’s teeth and we want to increase numbers,’ he says. The system for referral often comes through ROVIs working for social services and systems vary around the country. He says while BVUK has ROVIs most work for local social services within visual impairment departments and working with those departments and eye clinic liaison officers is crucial to identify and meet visual impairment needs.
The money raised by Optician’s readers over the years helps the centre tick along. You can still donate to the latest Optician sporting challenge for Blind Veterans UK by logging on to www.justgiving.com/fundraising/opticianeditor.