Mobility, Independence, Inclusion.
Wheelchair Alliance Strategic Direction 2023-2026
Our vision:
To transform the experience for wheelchair users in England through improved access, quality and effectiveness of services.
Our Mission:
We will ensure the collective views of wheelchair users are represented with all relevant organisations and work in partnership to influence at the highest level, ensuring wheelchair users are empowered to lead qualitative, independent lives. This will be done by making sure wheelchair users are listened to and have confidence that every wheelchair service provides the choice and capability to fully deliver the outcomes of each individual person.
Strategies
1. To champion national accountability for wheelchair users
We will publicly support and champion services and processes that demonstrate best practice for wheelchair users and, where appropriate, their primary carers/families.
We will challenge services and processes that do not provide equitable care in an acceptable timeframe.
2. To communicate with wheelchair users
We will capture the voice of wheelchair users and amplify it through diverse channels.
We will be the ‘go to’ website for information relating to wheelchairs, with a commitment to the use of simple, jargon free and easily navigated forms of communication.
3. To innovate for the benefit of wheelchair users
We will work in partnership with wheelchair users, manufacturers, policy makers, NHS England, Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) as well as local commissioners and service providers to improve services and equipment that best support independent living.
We will commission research that provides evidence to drive innovation and change.
To ensure we can move forward with these strategies we will build internal capacity to ensure sustainability by enhancing:
- Member Intelligence: Deepen the relationship with and knowledge of Members to maximise the skills and experience they bring.
- Increased Resources: Develop our financial resources to become an independent organisation and ensure sustainability into the future.
- Board composition: Increase membership of the director board to underpin governance and decision making for the Community Interest Company. Increase the membership of the operational board enabling it to deliver the strategy and ensuring the directors are accountable. The majority of operational board members should be people with lived experience.
- Communications: Focus on disseminating information in a concise manner that is free from jargon. Broaden our reach by utilising social media more effectively.
Wheelchair Alliance Operations Plan 2023-2026
To deliver the strategic aims, the Alliance will form dedicated working groups. Over the next three years our plan is to:
Champion the needs of wheelchair users by
- Developing a national advisory board of wheelchair users, with representatives from each of the 7 NHS regions. This will enable the Alliance to amplify the voice of those with lived experience, lobbying at the highest level using relevant data and information. We will achieve this by the end of 2024.
- Reviewing and refreshing the Wheelchair Charter, or its equivalent, following the delegation of responsibility to ICBs and use it in conjunction with the Quality Framework for Wheelchair Provision to hold relevant stakeholders to account. We will achieve this by the end of 2024.
- Launching an All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Wheelchairs to strengthen the voice of wheelchair users in Parliament using a forum of cross-party MPs and Peers to influence at the highest level. We will have developed the plan and identified 5 MPs by the end of 2023 and hold the first meeting by the end of March 2024.
Communicate
- Continue to expand the community of wheelchair users with representatives to support development of information for people needing a wheelchair, reaching those who do not access wheelchair services. Specifically we will present information about Personal Wheelchair budgets in a way that has jargon removed and can be endorsed by both our user engagement group and health and social care organisations. We will achieve this by March 2024.
- Expand our person-friendly website dedicated to wheelchair users, acting as a gateway to external policies, procedures and practice. We will publish a quarterly newsletter and develop current and new pages to best support wheelchair users and their primary carers/families. This will be an evolving process with at least one addition every quarter.
- Raise awareness of the Wheelchair Alliance through attendance at events throughout the year. We will attend at least two events per year to promote the work of the Alliance and from 2024 hold four (4) APPG meetings to influence change and raise the profile of wheel-chair users and the services they access.
Innovate
- Invest in evidence-based research to drive service and product improvements. The Alliance will look for grant funding for one piece of research or one survey every other year using all evidence to drive change that can be evidenced.
- Encourage the establishment of appropriate methods of data collection to support change and enforce the claims made on behalf of wheelchair users.
- Host a forum with manufacturers and wheelchair users to encourage innovation based on lived experience. We will hold this event by July 2024, with wheelchair users at the heart of the discussion and any outcomes.
Sustainability
- Build financial resilience through fundraising supported by a skilled fundraising director thereby supporting members attendance at Alliance meetings and funding virtual administration capacity. Financial resilience will mean holding one year’s reserves to cover the Alliances core activity.
- Build capacity through the recruitment of new members, and co-opting of expertise to working groups that deliver the agreed priorities.
The Alliance priorities for 2023-2024 are:
- Explore the development of a national advisory board of wheelchair users contacting other national charities
- Publish an impact report describing the difference the Alliance is making
- Develop and launch an APPG for Wheelchairs
- Develop the director team
- Financial security with a reserves policy in place
Governance of the Wheelchair Alliance
The Alliance has the following formal mechanisms that it must adhere to:
- Annual fee to the Information Commissioners Office (covering data protection)
- Submission of Annual Accounts to Companies House
- Submission of annual statement of achievement to Companies House
- Update Director register at Companies House as necessary
- Reports shared with the CIC Regulator by Companies House as required
- Annual public liability insurance
- Registered Office
- Policy and procedures reviewed regularly