91Èȱ¬

THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT.Ìý BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE 91Èȱ¬ CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY.

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IN TOUCH – Manchester Airport

TX:Ìý 17.07.2018Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

PRODUCER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý KEVIN CORE

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White

Good evening.Ìý Tonight – the airports that are still failing to offer a good service to visually impaired passengers.Ìý And can you have too much vision?

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Clip

The best way I’ve come up with of describing it is if you take a ruler and you look through the edge everything is shunted a little bit extra four times to the left and four times up.

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White

Why multiple vision can pose a whole host of problems of its own.

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But first, some UK airports are still not providing a good enough service to disabled passengers.Ìý So says the Civil Aviation Authority whose report says that although most UK airports have improved over the past year three – Gatwick, Stansted and Birmingham – still need to do better and one – Manchester – continues to be rated as poor.Ìý In particular, the report draws attention to passengers having sometimes to wait for an hour or more for someone to escort them from an arriving plane.

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Quite a lot of the recent publicity on this has concentrate, for good reasons, on wheelchair users.Ìý But for visually impaired passengers the problems can be rather different.Ìý Back in 2015 partially sighted Diane Rowarth told In Touch what happened to her when she arrived back in Manchester from a boating holiday.

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Rowarth

The air stewardess asked me what sort of assistance I would like during the flight and I said I just really did need somebody to walk alongside me so that I could get to the luggage reclamation and then on to the arrivals lounge.Ìý But when it came to actually getting off the plane she said – I’m really sorry but the only thing we can get you is wheelchair assistance.Ìý And I said – I don’t need wheelchair assistance.Ìý She said – But no, but that’s the only we can get you assistance from the aircraft is by booking a wheelchair.

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White

Which must have come as a surprise to you because presumably you had booked this on the understanding that you could just have somebody’s arm?

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Rowarth

Absolutely.Ìý It’s meet and a greet or meet and assist rather, I think is what they call it.Ìý So, when the gentleman came to meet me with the wheelchair it was perfectly obvious that I was walking from the aircraft to the wheelchair and I had my long cane out but I still had to get in the wheelchair.Ìý He was say – Now what does your suitcase look like?Ìý So, I described it to him.Ìý And he saw one coming round and he says – Is that it?Ìý So, I’m this visually impaired person who can’t see enough to walk but I can see enough to identify my suitcase when it’s coming around the trolley.

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White

Right.Ìý So, were you offered the option to walk if you wanted to, when you got on to the ground?

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Rowarth

No, I wasn’t.Ìý And that was very disappointing.Ìý And I did say when I’d got my suitcase, I said – Look, I’m perfectly capable of walking, I’m quite happy to do that.Ìý And the gentleman pushing the wheelchair said – No, please just stay in the wheelchair and I’ll take you to the airport arrivals – where my son was waiting to collect me.

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White

I’d like to ask you one thing because this does crop up a lot, I’ve had this experience and I guess the point is – why does it matter so much?Ìý I do know some blind people who say oh why make such a fuss about it, you can sit in the wheelchair, you can get whisked through, you can dodge the queues, why do we make such a fuss about it?

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Rowarth

Well I found it very embarrassing to be honest.Ìý I’m perfectly capable of walking, I’d just been on a three-week sailing holiday and had no mishaps and yet I had to sit in a wheelchair and be pushed.Ìý And I found it hugely embarrassing, quite demeaning.Ìý And I was also worried about the impression it would have on my son when he saw me coming into the arrivals lounge in a wheelchair, I thought – he’s going to think I’ve broken my leg or had an accident or something.Ìý I am very capable of getting myself from A to B but if it’s in an area that I’m not familiar with I just need to be able to walk by the side of somebody to make sure that I get where I’m going.

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White

Well that was Diane Rowarth.Ìý Well the company that were providing assistance at Manchester Airport – OCS – said the people on the ground were trained and should have been able to provide assistance by simply walking alongside her.Ìý They said it was an individual mistake.

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Well Paul Smith is the Civil Aviation Authority’s Consumers and Markets Director and has been looking at this report.

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Paul, this is what we often hear when something goes wrong, that it’s an individual, that it isn’t the system.Ìý What’s your reaction to what you’ve just heard?

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Smith

Well obviously, Diane’s experience is a very disappointing experience and it does illustrate one of the important things that I think airports that do deliver a really good service to people needing extra assistance do which is really understand the individual needs of the passenger, talk to the passenger, make sure that what they’re providing to them is what that passenger needs.Ìý In that particular case that doesn’t seem to have happened and the type of service that Diane needed wasn’t provided.

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I think the report that we’ve published today does illustrate really good progress in general, we’ve got 16 airports ranked as very good, that’s up from six the previous year.Ìý But there are – and Manchester is one of them – airports that need to improve.Ìý Manchester we’ve rated as poor, that’s principally because it’s waiting times for assisting passengers have been too long, sometimes up to an hour or more.Ìý So, this is a report really to highlight good practice and things that are going well but also recognise that there is significant room for improvement in a number of cases.

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White

And I think it’s reasonable just to stay on the issue of wheelchairs for a moment, it’s reasonable to suggest that the system is based around them, so that if, for example, you get to an airport you are tended to treat all as a homogenous group.Ìý So, I’ve been told – Oh well we’ve got three wheelchairs here and you’ve got to come with them.Ìý They may want to go to baggage claim, I don’t necessarily want to go to baggage claim and again I’ve found this assumption that you will get in a wheelchair.Ìý So, it is an issue of choice isn’t it.

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Smith

It should be absolutely and I think it can start – it sounds like Diane would have done this – providing information to the airline at the time of booking about your needs.Ìý It should be about understanding the personal needs of people.Ìý And this is getting even more important I think – we put out a report quite recently about hidden disabilities as well and that really is about asking people what their particular needs are and responding to those needs, rather than making assumptions that a particular form of assistance will always be the right thing for everybody.

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White

Amongst the other things that you found in your report is this issue of unacceptably long waits for passengers needing assistance.Ìý Manchester gets a particularly bad press as far as this is concerned.Ìý Why is this the case because again it often seems that it has to do with them having to collect everybody all at once and perhaps not having enough staff to do it?

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Smith

Yeah, so you’re right.Ìý One of the three things that we take into account in ranking the airports is how quickly they assist passengers to get off the aeroplane and we set a target time of no more than 20 minutes.Ìý Manchester wasn’t able to meet that in too many cases and have some very, very long waits.Ìý There can be a range of reasons why that happens, sometimes it may be resources, sometimes training, planning, sometimes things do go wrong – flights are late etc. – that make it more challenging.Ìý But lots of other airports have been able to deliver a really good service in terms of speed of helping passengers.Ìý Heathrow is a good example that was ranked poor last year and has improved through to good this year with a real focus on making sure that the staff have the right training and support, making sure that there is enough resources to provide the right types of service.Ìý And the leadership at the airport taking responsibility.Ìý I think the good thing with Manchester is they are responding, we’ve got a performance improvement plan that they’re required to follow through and I think we’re seeing the real sense that Manchester wants to improve and wants to provide a better service to disabled passengers.

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White

Your reports says you’ll hold airports which underperform, in the way that Manchester has, to account.Ìý How are you going to do that?

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Smith

Yeah, so we’ve got a formal commitment from Manchester to improve, a performance improvement plan which is on their website which they’re working to deliver.Ìý And we have enforcement powers which can go all the way through to taking an airport to court and the court having the ability to impose a fine on them.Ìý So, we’re really serious about making sure that improvements happen.Ìý I think what we’ve seen these reports in the last two years have been a real catalyst for airports to improve, they do not want to get poor ratings in this report.Ìý Heathrow, as I said earlier, has improved significantly over the last year.Ìý Edinburgh has gone from being poor two years ago all the way through to being very good this year.Ìý So, I think the reports, together with us being really clear that we will take action if there is no improvement, provides a really strong basis for airports to improve.

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White

That was Paul Smith from the Civil Aviation Authority.

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Well we were of course keen to talk to someone from Manchester Airport but despite offering them options when they could be interviewed we were told no one was available.Ìý So pretty much what disabled people waiting on their planes are told.

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In a statement Manchester said they did acknowledge the findings and were committed to improve.Ìý They said the report highlighted positive changes they’d made and that a £1 billion transformation project would soon improve customers’ experiences.

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Now, we also had lots of responses to our interview with the 91Èȱ¬â€™s Head of Current Affairs, Joanna Carr, about subtitles on foreign news stories.Ìý Now when there’s no spoken translation in English we’re left listening to huge chunks of a foreign language and missing big sections of the story.Ìý Alex Scott was not impressed.Ìý He said:

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Scott

I was so annoyed and irritated to hear those contributors whinging and moaning about foreign language segments.Ìý What about all of us who have struggled over the years to learn those languages and really look forward to being able to get the full nuances of what somebody is saying rather than the meaning being distorted by the translator’s views and opinions?

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White

Jerome Verand [phon.] agreed.

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Verand

Broadcasting the original sound allows bilingual people, including some blind ones, to listen to the original meaning of the person speaking.Ìý Adding an English dub on top of that would prevent these bilingual individuals from getting the original meaning of the conversations.

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White

Both Alex and Jerome did agree there should be widespread audio description.

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Meanwhile Alison Mackintosh was disappointed with our guests’ response.

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Mackintosh

The real shock was that neither the Head of News and Current Affairs, nor the person talking about accessibility, appeared to be convinced that it mattered.Ìý The arguments raised were ridiculous.Ìý Of course, reporters want to be there first, as a journalist I understand this, but the text already exists in subtitle form, so can’t someone just read it?

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White

And Sean McGarry [phon.] made this request to those 91Èȱ¬ bosses.

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McGarry

Under the Equality Act 2010 information must be available in alternative formats to cater for the different audiences.Ìý There’s no excuse nowadays with technology for not catering for all types of audiences.Ìý I hope the 91Èȱ¬ can see where their responsibility lies and just get on with it.

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White

Well, we’re always trying to get on with it here at In Touch so do keep your emails coming.Ìý That’s intouch@bbc.co.uk.Ìý More ways to get in touch with us at the end of the programme.

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Now it’s reasonable to expect that most In Touch items are going to focus on people with poor sight or none but we’ve recently heard from Cressida Ryan, who’s struggling with a condition which could be described as too much sight.Ìý When she tries to get help from agencies dealing with visual impairment or government departments they often just don’t get it.Ìý So, what is multiple vision?

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When she joined us from Oxford Cressida explained what happened to her.

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Ryan

About 14 years ago I was a schoolteacher and a really bad bout of migraine came on and I gather one symptom of migraine I’d never really tuned into was that you can get double vision.Ìý Unfortunately, when the migraine stopped the double vision didn’t and it carried on and even got worse.

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White

So, I think what I need to ask you to do is explain what you see, what it actually looks like.

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Ryan

That’s a really tricky one but the best way I’ve come up with of describing it is if you take a ruler or a glass and you look through the edge you get a split and that’s happened to me, so everything is shunted a little bit extra four times to the left and four times up.Ìý So, there’s weird fragmentation around the sides.

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White

You can understand why people are puzzled in a way because I mean, for example, just to take an example that things that you do.Ìý The DVLA allow you to drive and yet I understand that you actually find getting around on your own – actually walking in the streets – quite problematic.

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Ryan

Yes, so because there is – everything is crystal clear and stable, so it’s not moving, nothing’s ghosted, nothing’s shimmering or anything, the DVLA assess me loads of times, I’ve had more than one assessment with them and various consultants wrote and agreed that it was sufficiently weird – I’m matching up every car with every lane, every light with every light and I know whether I’m safe or not.Ìý What’s hard when you go out in the street is then you’ve got crowds and all of a sudden you’ve just got huge amounts of data and loads of people and flashing lights and signs on train displays that are moving too quickly and are badly contrasted.Ìý And then all of a sudden it’s just too much and I can’t actually register it.

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White

And it’s not just people who find this difficult, it’s agencies and organisations I think.Ìý So, I gather there’s a difference in the way that even parts of the same government department deal with your disability.

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Ryan

I was just about to give up work to start a PhD when it happened, so I was a student and no one really knew quite what to do about it.Ìý And then I re-entered work and Access to Work have been amazing, they’ve assessed me, I’ve had support from individuals, I’ve had computing support, you name it they have tried their best.Ìý So, at work everyone’s says, yes you’ve got a problem, let’s see if we can help but as soon as you go into normal life you go for something like PIP, for example, and they say well what percentage of sight loss have you got…

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White

Just remind people – just to remind people PIP is Personal Independence Payments, yeah.

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Ryan

As soon as you go for something that’s outside of work then the language is that of what percentage sight loss have you got, rather than what impact does this have on your life because it can’t be categorised in those terms and so no one knows quite what to do with it.

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White

And I mean how do you try to explain that to people, how do you try to get over that?

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Ryan

So far with very little luck.Ìý It’s just been a question of I know – I have a child, for example, and when I was pregnant the NHS people I came into contact with – health visitors etc. – they were fantastic at saying what is particularly difficult about this for you and how can we help because your coordination might not be 100% when you’re rapidly changing shape.Ìý So, I was even more likely to walk into things etc.Ìý And they were much better at seeing things at task base.Ìý I think it’s when you find individual people within systems who are used to having to deal with how life changes that you find it much easier.Ìý But systems as a whole don’t seem to understand so well.

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White

So, in a daily life kind of context, as opposed to work context, what is difficult there, even within your own home?

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Ryan

Trying to read recipes in the kitchen because that’s not something where you’re concentrating on what you’re reading, for example, you’re too busy trying to not burn yourself.Ìý What other things?Ìý Stairs – don’t like escalators very much or stairs because they’re too much of the same data.

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White

Even your own stairs?

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Ryan

Even my own stairs.Ìý I know how many there are and therefore I can count them and that way I don’t fall up and down.Ìý Or music – I like singing, I sing in a choir in Oxford and trying to read the music there or even at home on the piano is a little bit confusing but I’ve got much better at learning by ear now, so that I can still do some stuff.

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White

And of course, in a work context, you do a very demanding kind of job, given your problem, you’re a biblical Greek scholar which I imagine means a lot of fairly intense study of documents.

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Ryan

I’m the instructor in New Testament Greek at the Faculty of Theology and Religion in the University of Oxford.Ìý I’d already been learning Greek for 10 years when the problem started and I said to the consultant what are my options and he said – do you think you can do the PhD.Ìý And I thought well I hope you’re going to tell me I can, not ask me if I can.Ìý So, we just took it from what we needed to do and I teach Greek, research Greek and I’m also learning Hebrew and Sanskrit, so that’s three separate scripts to deal with, which just made me a better teacher because, all of a sudden, I had to reduce the visual load that I was dealing with, which made it easier for my students too.Ìý So, I’ve been able to do some work on what Unicode fonts work best for people who can’t use their eyes as well.Ìý And I discovered those great video readers, that I was given a video reader to help read things and put them on a screen and if you take that with rare books it shows up the print really well but it also works really well if you’re working with old manuscripts and trying to work out if something is a crease or an actual bit of writing because they sharpen different intensities once you use the video reader on them – it’s really helpful.Ìý My friends get jealous because I can read manuscripts better than they can.

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White

And I understand you think that the terminology we use doesn’t help very much because you don’t fit into it?

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Ryan

Yes, I know my particular case is quite odd and I haven’t really come across anyone with the same thing but I do gather that things like migraine, things like eyes not working together, something like double vision is not an unheard-of condition.Ìý But that means you are visually impaired and not partially sighted and so it’s not about being politically correct, it’s about saying I have no sight loss, in fact I have the opposite but I do consider it has an impact on my life and therefore I would like a way to be able to communicate with people and express there is a problem that doesn’t lead to the question of what percentage sight loss have you got.

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White

Cressida Ryan.

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And if anyone has tips that might help Cressida we’d be happy to pass them on.

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You can call our actionline for 24 hours after the programme on 0800 044 044.Ìý You can email intouch@bbc.co.uk or click on contact us on our website.Ìý And you can also download tonight’s and other editions of the programme from there.Ìý And that’s it.Ìý From me, Peter White, producer Kevin Core and the team, goodbye.