NAEP Conference 2008 and the Norbreck Castle Hotel

Welcome all,

Once again, the NAEP conference – this year entitled ‘Equipment to the People - A Prescription Revolution? – was held at the Norbreck Castle Hotel in Blackpool. In the course of the two day event, Blackpool managed to offer us a moment of sunshine before the rain came cascading down!

There is a certain irony for me as a wheelchair user, for such an event to take place in a venue with unfortunately poor accessibility. Without staff members to accompany me, getting through parts of the hotel where doors were barely big enough for me to pass through would have been nigh on impossible. My accessible room proved relatively painless although I could well imagine the potential retail profit to be made from someone access auditing the place to encourage the hotel to install spy holes at an accessible level, and coat hooks at a reachable height!

The subject under debate at the conference was the TCES programme and the retail model, which proved a topic able to in part to enflame opinion and to provoke discussion. Presentations abounded from retailers, community equipment service members and the Department of Health, all eager to play a part in the ongoing dialogue regarding the provision of equipment. The DoH is aware that retailers are not ready to provide the essential service needed for the retail model to work, and are in search of current retailers to take on the model. They have also created a financial structure which individual equipment service teams may use to foresee the positive benefits to be had from taking the model onboard; the National Catalogue is set to appear in the coming months.

Congratulations to all at NAEP for putting on such an engaging event and I look forward to the continued debate currently underway.

All the best,

Alan Norton