AAT : Assisted Animal Therapy
Creature comfort care home residents
ANIMAL magic cheered up the elderly residents of a Brixham care home.
Simon Kite of the town's activity services (Sunshine Activities) visited Frencham House with a host of furry friends
Simon, known as the Animal Man, brought along his well behaved but playful dog Bruno for the residents to groom.
He then gave everyone a rug to put on their laps and handeed out various animals such as chinchillas, rabbits, gerbils, guinea pigs and hampsters for them to hold and stroke.
Nick Ross, the manager at the Stonehaven Healthcare Group registered home, said: "Simon also spoke to the residents and gave various information about each animal. It was a fantastic afternoon and put the smile back on peoples faces. The therapeutic benifits were unbelievable.
Change of Law affecting Transporting
Transport Contracts for Hire or Reward!
We have just managed to purchase another Transporter in order to offset the change in the law with Contracted Transport for hire or reward.
Due to a Government law change that came into effect in January of this year we have now purchased a new Transporter.
We were lucky enough to spot a change in government law affecting contracted transporting for hire or reward. Previously there was a clause which allowed us to have a contract in order to transport disabled people for hire or reward, however that clause was changed and the change came into effect in January of this year.
Although we keep our transporter in the best of physical shape and the lift is tested every 6 months, we have found that we now need a PHV (Private Hire Vehicle) License under the new regulations.
Unfortunately in Torbay that means the vehicle needs to be registered under the age of 4 years old and changed every 8 years.
Some of you may feel that this is a good Idea, and to be honest, if our vehicle was not kept in immaculate condition, We may feel the same. However having used Local Public Transport with our disabled chap, we were highly unimpressed with much of the service.
Although many of the busses are now accessible, we have found that some are still not, this means a longer wait for the next bus or even the one after that before we can be on our way, and sometimes that means taking a bus which goes around all the estates rather than straight to the destination.
The Busses do not have enough restraints to hold a wheelchair in position for their style of driving, and I have to physically stand and hold the chair in place even though the chair is settled in the correct position with the brakes fully locked.
Because of the height of our disabled client we have found that we can not get a Taxi Cab in the area that can take him and his chair safely.
One driver we did get a lift with, did not use the ramp, saying it was easier to get our client in and out without it. We are not sure how health and safety view this but we were not impressed. Also the driver was quite happy (as were many more) to take our client with only about an inch of space between his head and the roof of the cab. Heaven forbid if there was a bump, as our client could have his neck snapped by the action.
One of the most unusual things I found was that the cab did not need to strap the chair in? Is this normal. Our disabled chap said that many Taxi's normally take disabled passengers that way.
This law has now affected many businesses in the area who were previously working in a very safe, effective and cost effective manner, yet now they have had to either plough much more money into their business or give up the business they had in order to satisfy what is really a very stupid change in the law.
How on earth could this be helping anyone? If the change was in order to make it safer, I dispute that fact as now we notice that it is much, much more unsafe to take public transport and Taxi's. If it was set up because Public Hire Vehicles need a CRB to work then that is disputed also, as anyone working in the Disability sector would need not only a CRB to transport people, but also a First Aid Certificate.
All this has done is made the people who were transporting the disabled, unable to transport for a reasonable charge. However what it has provided is extra customers for Taxi Drivers who charge much more, and as I explained earlier are much less safe.
Any comments on the above, please contact me on our contact page.