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IN TOUCH – Accessible Covid Testing; Working from Home

TX:Ìý 15.06.2021Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

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PRODUCER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý SIMON HOBAN

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White

Good evening.Ìý

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Music

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Well, should you stay or should you go?Ìý We’ll hear the pros and cons of continuing to work from home versus going back into the workplace, if you’re visually impaired.Ìý Well, it’s something many of us are going to have to make a decision about some time soon, if you haven’t already.Ìý We’re really keen to hear your thoughts on this, so do email intouch@bbc.co.uk.

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And as if you needed encouragement to get in touch with us, proof, this week, that it can reap rewards.Ìý After contacting us about a problem with the Milk and More website Marianne emailed us back to say: ‘Thanks to the magic influence of In Touch, I can now use my Milk and More site in landscape mode.’

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Well, glad it worked Marianne and thanks to Milk and More for taking notice.

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Now, the return of fans to sports events, even though in reduced numbers, has brought back some much-needed atmosphere to stadia.Ìý But it’s also highlighted the importance of testing, because to get in at either the Test Match at Edgbaston last week or England’s group game at Wembley in the football at the weekend, fans had to show that they’d either been fully vaccinated or had proof of a negative lateral flow test.Ìý Well, the government made twice weekly lateral flow tests available to everyone to order but, despite campaigns to improve accessibility, organisations say not enough has been done to enable blind and partially sighted people to use them independently.Ìý We’ll hear from the RNIB in a moment but first, Sean Randall joins us from Worcester.

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Now Sean, you’re someone who’s doing testing a lot, just tell us your situation.

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Randall

Hello Peter, thank you.Ìý Yes, well I work at a college so I have to be tested twice a week before I go into work.Ìý And I do now have a responsible – if that’s the right word – enough sighted help at home, my daughter is now old enough to read the tests if I need her to.Ìý But that really wasn’t the point, I wanted to be someone who could this on my own.Ìý And I was just quite shocked at the lack of any enthusiasm for making this more accessible really.Ìý My process now is that I do the test of a morning, by the time I come out of the shower and gotten ready the result’s ready to be read and I use my phone to take a picture of the test and I will send that to a sighted person, be it on an app, designed for voluntary help, or be it sighted colleagues or friends to get the result read.Ìý But it’s really not a perfect solution by any means because it means I can’t do it completely on my own, that’s as far as I can get at the moment…

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White

And I understand your workplace has offered to help but that created problems as well.

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Randall

Yeah, I mean they were brilliant, they did all they could, they said you can come in and get tested, if you want to, we’ll help you with that.Ìý But that would mean changing my whole lifestyle around.Ìý My daughter has to go to school, my transport times would have had to change.Ìý Why should my disability cause that upheaval really, when technology is there to step in.

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White

Well effectively it would mean that you had to go into work to find out if you could go into work, wouldn’t it?

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Randall

Absolutely.

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White

And the bottom line is if there was no sighted person to send that photo via your phone, you wouldn’t know the test result?

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Randall

No, I’d have had to go into work on a different schedule and I would have found that quite discriminating.

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White

Well, the government was asked a written question about this on the 12th April.Ìý The Health Minister, Helen Whately’s reply is read by a member of our team:

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Statement – Helen Whately

New tools are being introduced for those ordering home test kits who are visually impaired, including improved boxes, which are easy to assemble for the returning of tests.Ìý Instructions in braille, audio and large print and an RNIB information line to hear a recorded version of the instructions.Ìý On 1st April we launched the Be My Eyes app which offers live video assistance from trained NHS Test and Trace staff.Ìý To support those who are unable to administer the test themselves, there are now more 50 static regional test sites across the United Kingdom which offer assisted testing.

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Well, the RNIB have been campaigning on this issue and we can speak to their Campaigns and Policy Manager, Mike Wordingham.Ìý Did those improvements happen and did they make things easier?

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Wordingham

Well, we have been – RNIB have been working with NHS Test and Trace since May last year on two user trials with blind and partially sighted people to improve the accessibility of home testing kits but so far, those improvements have been put in place for the PCR tests, so far they haven’t been put in place for the lateral flow device tests but we understand that is happening now, it’s just not as quick as we would have liked.

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White

Sean described the technique of actually making a phone call and getting a sighted person on the phone, as it were, with a photograph to give you the result.Ìý Is that not an answer?

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Wordingham

It’s certainly a step in the right direction. ÌýWhat we asked for is that the improvements that Helen Whatley mentioned, particularly the live video assistance through Be My Eyes be moved over to the lateral flow device tests, so then you can go to the specialist advisors through Be My Eyes and they can support you to take the test and read the result and I understand that is a process that’s underway.

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White

This is a whole new set of circumstances, what more could the government still be doing better when it comes to accessibility?

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Wordingham

So, I think all the public health information and public health interventions that have been put in place since coronavirus have shown really clearly that something has to change in the way these things work, particularly that accessibility needs to be built in from the very beginning of government projects and policies, so that we’re not a few steps behind.

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White

Let me just quickly go back to Sean Randall.Ìý I mean what would you like to see, what more could they do actually in this situation, given that it was, in the first place, a completely new situation that they were confronted with?

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Randall

The thing that caught my eye, if you like, is that I was being offered accessible or more accessible boxes for my PCR tests a week after I’d had to start lateral flow testing.Ìý You know things just moved so slowly, there was no sense of urgency.Ìý And I’m quite surprised that people like the RNIB didn’t invest more in things like apps.Ìý We’ve had apps that can read pregnancy tests being researched and designed, the technology that shows you whether you’ve got a positive or negative result on a flow test is something that visually a computer program with the right coding could identify quite reasonably.Ìý If you’re making people use technology to get some live person on the screen, who’s then got to wait half an hour after you’ve done the test to read your result to you, could there not have been a parallel research strand in place to use technology to read that result?

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White

Let me just go back to Mike Wordingham.Ìý You say the government have been off the mark, have you been a bit slow off the mark yourselves?

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Wordingham

So, we had discussions with Test and Trace to take some of the innovations that have been put in place, particularly around the pregnancy test, and how they could be used for future testing.Ìý So, that’s definitely something we’re working on.

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White

Okay.Ìý Mike Wordingham, thank you very much indeed.Ìý Sean Randall, thank you, and do stay with us because we want you to chip in on our next item about working from home too.

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Well, we did ask the government for an interview but no one could be made available.Ìý However, in a statement, they said: ‘We keep the accessibility of lateral flow testing under constant review and are working with partners to explore how this could be further improved.’

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Well, do let us know your experiences of accessibility when it comes to testing.Ìý It feels like it’s only going to become more important as things start to reopen fully, whenever that might be.

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Now, getting back to some of your emails.Ìý And last week we talked about the importance of lighting in the home but one solution I was aware that we didn’t touch on in that item was how the choice of colours in a room can make a difference.Ìý Dr Kevin Mansfield emailed to make the point that it’s not just the lighting that’s important, the use of contrast in colour is a useful technique.Ìý A doorframe in a contrasting colour to the surrounding wall, a dark coloured edging strip, perhaps, to a work service compared to the top.Ìý Kevin says, this can work with the lighting to reveal shape and form and assist navigation in the home.

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And we’ve continued to get some fascinating responses from you about our discussion on the role of genetics in visual impairment and, in particular, the decisions some of you have taken around undergoing some form of genetic testing.Ìý This from Sarah Caffrey.

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Caffrey - email

I had my genome tested and like your speaker it took three years to get my result.Ìý My main reason for doing it was to find out for my parents if my condition was inherited or not.Ìý I wasn’t bothered either way and it hadn’t changed much in my life.Ìý But my parents were not expecting the result and were a little taken aback by it as they thought it had a different cause.Ìý I would be interested in hearing more on the potential consequences of genome testing from the perspective of finding out additional disabilities, conditions or diseases and any implications these might have for things like life insurance or mortgages.Ìý Also, the potential for future pre-natal testing and the impact this could have for parents being encouraged not to have the child with visual impairment.

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White

Well, Sarah’s thoughts there illustrate just how deep this issue can go.Ìý And it’s one, I’m sure, we’ll come back to.

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Now a new phrase has entered the lexicon, I don’t know if you’ve come across it yet – hybrid worker.Ìý It describes the new way in which many of us are being asked to work, including, for that matter, here at the Â鶹Éç.Ìý It means working from home will continue to some extent, so you can still walk the dog or do whatever you want to do between those endless Zoom meetings, with office attendance likely to be cut down to something like two, maybe three, days a week.Ìý So, how do you feel about that as someone who is blind or partially sighted?

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Well, we’ve still got Sean Randall with us from earlier to talk about it but let’s introduce two new guests, both work for local charities in their area – Gary Eadie is an IT specialist with Sight for Surrey and Georgina Hollingshead works at Cam Sight, that’s a Cambridgeshire charity supporting people with low vision and blindness.

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Gary, if I can start with you, just give us a flavour of your average day and how working from home has worked for you.

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Eadie

Well, my average day, Peter, used to consist of getting up sort of like 6.40 in the morning, having breakfast – the usual sort of stuff – and then going off on my daily commute to the office.Ìý It would take about an hour and a half out of my day just to get there.Ìý Spend about seven hours in the office and then another hour and a half on the way back.Ìý But now, in this working from home arrangement, which I’m currently in, I get up a bit later, I start work about 9.30, I don’t get much interruption actually all day through and it’s a more relaxed environment for me.

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White

Is it just the time thing, the saving time or are there elements of hassle to do with your visual impairment that you’re glad to be rid of?

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Eadie

It’s most definitely both.Ìý The journey itself is three trains and a taxi and then on foot for quite a distance, so there’s a lot of stress involved in that and my sight’s not very good at all.Ìý So, I’m really glad to be without that hassle and I’m less stressed when I get to work.

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White

Okay, let me bring in Georgina.Ìý How about you because I think you’ve got a slightly different take on it?

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Hollingshead

Yeah, so, my usual day would be getting up and coming into the office for nine o’clock, doing a bit of paperwork, then maybe going out on a visit to somebody’s home or perhaps a rural group that we put on.Ìý So, it’s a bit of travel in and out.Ìý And then at five o’clock I’d get the train back.Ìý And for me I like the mix, I like the mix of a couple of days going into the office but not being everyday because the travel can be a bit problematic.Ìý But also, I really enjoy that as a – as being independent, I’m walking to the train station, I’m getting the train, I’m walking to the office and now I’m in the right mindset to be in the office.

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White

You see, that’s interesting because I think a lot of people perhaps would think – why would a blind or partially sighted person want to impose that kind of potential stress on themselves when they now would have, what might sound like, a perfectly good excuse for not doing it.

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Hollingshead

I would say that in terms of busy-ness of trains and stuff there’s never been a better time because I used to have to get the train home and I’d have to stand up, but now there’s seats for me to sit down.

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White

I’ve noticed that I must say, that suddenly you can travel.Ìý But, of course, it doesn’t alter the fact that there are still roads to cross, there are things to crash into, there are all the things that go with blindness and travel.

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Hollingshead

Yes, yeah, definitely but I like to talk to my clients about this and say, you know, you’re doing it for yourself, I’m doing it for myself, it’s for me, even though it’s a little – you might walk into something every now and again but, you know…

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White

So, it’s part of independence basically?

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Hollingshead

Yes, definitely, yeah, and I can control when I go in, when I come out, what days I work in the office, what days I don’t.Ìý And just the interactions with people, if they may be in the office at the same time, you know having lunch in the same building as someone is really important.

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White

What about that Gary, because although I understand what you say about having perhaps more control over your environment, you’re not having that face-to-face contact with people are you?

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Eadie

No and, to be fair, I do think it’s important to go into the office.Ìý I’m on Georgina’s side a little bit there.Ìý I think working from home all the time isn’t necessarily a good thing.Ìý But certainly, some of the advantages of working from home is – what I found was if you go on the trains and there’s a train delay that would often put me behind in my day; I’ve got appointments at certain times of the day.Ìý Whereas at home, I can just arrange those appointments via Zoom or WhatsApp video call or whatever it might be and I can be bang on time with the clients.Ìý The client, themselves, they don’t have to have the hassle of coming in to see me in my workplace because that’s what normally happens.Ìý So, it’s much easier for both me and the client.

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White

And I think you’ve also made the point that you thought that perhaps in sort of some situations where you have both visually impaired and non-visually impaired people on a call, for example, you feel slightly more at equal terms in this situation?

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Eadie

Well, most definitely.Ìý Using Zoom as an example, I can take part in a Zoom meeting, I can know who’s in that Zoom meeting just by looking at the participants’ list, using my screen reader of course.Ìý But if I was to attend a meeting, I wouldn’t really know who was in it.

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White

Expand on that point about meetings Gary, what do you mean?

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Eadie

Well in terms of – the main difference is just getting physically to the meeting and once I get to the meeting, finding the room, finding a seat within the room and then knowing who’s in the room.Ìý Whereas on Zoom, I just enter using the invitation link, I can then browse the list of participants to find out who’s in the meeting and I feel on an equal platform to anybody else in that meeting.

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White

Georgina, I just wonder whether one thing that occurred to me has occurred to you, given your attitude to saying you quite like going in, did you fear the loss of confidence if you weren’t using your mobility skills?

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Hollingshead

Yes, definitely, yeah, I found that even for myself the first time I went in I was like – oh, I thought I would be better.Ìý So, it took me a little bit longer and it took me – just finding everything in the office again, I kind of forgot where everything was.

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White

So, you mean when you were going back, you were less confident than you would have expected to be?

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Hollingshead

Yes but I also think that I’m more confident now than I would have been if maybe I’d put it off any longer.

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White

Let me bring back Sean Randall, who we talked to earlier about testing, what about you because I understand you’ve had a bit of a change of heart on this one?

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Randall

I started off loving it, I thought ooh the commute gone, you know that whole hanging around and being late and everything.Ìý And as the time went on and I realised I couldn’t go anywhere at all, I began to think – mm, this is a bit claustrophobic.Ìý I began to appreciate the commute more as a headspace time, to get my brain in gear and to switch off and leave things behind at the end of the day, I’d lost that – I’d gone from being able to get ready and then go in and prepare myself to just getting up and being there, without any sort of transition period.Ìý Can I just also come to the point that Gary made about Zoom meetings versus live in-person meetings?Ìý I thought it was going to be a good thing for blind people and visually impaired people as well but obviously my job involves teaching young people and if they’ve not mastered those e-meeting skills to see who is in the room, to see who is speaking, to know when something’s being shared with them, that can be even more disadvantage to them, if they’re in a physical meeting.Ìý So, there are swings and roundabouts.Ìý It was a good learning experience for the young people, to learn how to do this sort of thing, it’s not something that people tend to or tended to before the pandemic.Ìý But, yeah, it’s been a very mixed bag, absolutely.

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White

Well, it sounds as if we are perhaps going to have to acquire a whole new load of skills for both ways of doing things.Ìý Gary Eadie, Georgina Hollingshead and Sean Randall thank you very much indeed.

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Well, I’m sure you’ll have things to say about all the things we’ve discussed in the programme, so keep the emails coming intouch@bbc.co.uk.Ìý And you can get more information from our website bbc.co.uk/intouch from where you can also download tonight’s and previous editions of the programme.

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From me, Peter White, producer Simon Hoban and studio managers John Cole and Philip Halliwell, goodbye.

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