Alt-Text is an image description for those who use screen readers. It is an important accessibility tool that is often misused or is missing entirely, impacting on visually impaired people's experiences when consuming online content. The BBC's Johny Cassidy was instrumental in creating new mandatory training and guidance for journalists so that the…

Although not now new, gene therapy is an evolving procedure for the treatment of a range of eye conditions. Recent developments include an American-based trial involving a gene editing process known as CRISPR. We speak to Dr Eric Pierce and Dr Mark Pennesi, who were both involved in the trial, as well as Olivia Cook, who tells us about her experien…

Technology often supports blind and visually impaired people to achieve independence. However, the process can also work in reverse - hindering rather than helping. We speak to listeners about their experience of booking to see their favourite acts using Ticketmaster. And is an update to an app always good news? Maybe not if you're a blind user of …

Victoria Harrison is the UK's first totally blind ambassador to be posted overseas. In August she will take up the role as Ambassador to the Republic of Slovenia, and will be accompanied by her guide dog Otto. Victoria tells Peter about how she got into the diplomatic service, coming up against peoples perceptions of visual impairment and her capab…

Hayley Kennedy, Amar Latif and Dawn Hopper are all experienced visually impaired travellers and we have brought them together to discuss the positives and pitfalls of travelling around the world when visually impaired. We discuss booking airport assistance, getting your guide dog on an airplane, allocations of special assistance seats on airplanes …

What is non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder? It is a condition that impacts the natural body clock, thus affecting sleep, and can be triggered by a lack of or no light perception. Tina Snow got in touch after having suffered with this condition for most of her life and she struggled to get the treatment she needed. We have brought Tina together with a …

As the charity Guide Dogs looked into its own future, they have predicted some financial hardship due to rising costs. Similarly to many organisations within the charity sector, they are having to come up with ways of cutting costs in order to maintain current levels of service provision. Their staff have been told that redundancies are a possibili…

The Disabled Students' Allowance enables students to get help with specialist equipment and in-person support, but over the years we've heard about persistent complications and delays. The system is operated by the Student Loans Company and they have now introduced some new processes that aim to reduce the problems that students are facing. David T…

The communications regulator Ofcom has just made changes to its guidelines surrounding audio description provided by television and on-demand services. For the first time, there will be unique recommendations for on-demand providers. Helen Shaw is part of Ofcom's content policy team and tells In Touch about the amendments and how the Media Bill, wh…

A new hotel in London, that belongs to a big-name franchise, initially declared on their website that service dogs are not welcome. Dave and Karen Cloherty were left in shock when they came to book a room for them and their guide dog for an annual appointment at Moorfield's Eye Hospital, given that the hotel in question is just a few minutes walk f…

In Touch discusses whether your blindness should be at the front and centre of your life. Perhaps an ambiguous question because it can depend on the environment you're in, the company that you share, whether you need help and many other factors. What is undoubtedly true though, is that it's not that easy to go completely under the radar with poor s…

News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sightedBy BBC Radio 4

Vision Rehabilitation is an essential service to newly blind or partially sighted people, and those whose sight has changed. It is a service that is provided by local councils and can help with things like technology, daily mobility and independent living skills. But new Freedom of Information data from the RNIB has highlighted that many local coun…

The Northern Ireland Assembly, the country's devolved legislature, have recently reformed after years of political stalemate. In Touch investigates the issues that arose during the Assembly's years of inactivity and that will have potential long-term impacts for visually impaired people. Some of the changes to the UK's benefit system uniquely impac…

Northern Ireland recently hosted its first major assistive technology conference. The conference was hosted by the RNIB at the Europa Hotel in Belfast and it was home for the day to all the big players in the assistive technology arena. In Touch went along to find out what the latest tech has to offer and the kinds of things visually impaired peopl…

2024 promises to be hugely significant for political change around the world, with more than eighty countries planning to head to the polls. The UK being one of them. This year will see not only a general election, but local elections and others. Niki Nixon is from The Electoral Commission, and she provides details of what visually impaired people …

Tonight's edition challenges any idea that there are limits to the ways in which visually impaired people can have fun! Shiraz Cohan is the founder of the UK Blind Baseball Association. He joins us with Lancashire Lions team mate Shoaib Nazir and Ray Clements from the Liverpool blind Trojans. They tell us how the sport has been adapted to make it a…

Mixmups is a new children's TV show that aims to integrate disability into everyday adventures and children's play. The show was created by Rebecca Atkinson, who has duel sensory loss, when she realised the lack of representation in children's toys. She took her Mixmups characters to Mackinnon & Saunders, who are the studio behind some iconic kids …

A recent YouGov poll, commissioned by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Eye Health and Visual Impairment, has found that many employers do not have inclusive employment practices. This may not come as a surprise to many blind and partially sighted people who have experienced employment or are seeking employment and so we assess what needs to hap…

Can blind people play baseball or be morris dancers? Of course they can!By BBC Radio 4

Local sight loss charities exist throughout the UK to provide practical and emotional support to blind and visually impaired people. We wanted to learn more about the services they offer and the challenges they face. Fiona Sandford is the CEO of Visionary, the membership organisation for these charities and she joins us to answer our questions. The…

Accessible In Home Displays (AIHDs) work with Smart Meters so that blind and visually impaired people can more easily monitor their use of energy. Their features include large buttons, high contrast displays and text to speech functions. Around a year ago, we looked at complaints from listeners about problems in obtaining AIHDs from their supplier …

With a general election a certainty at some point this year, two recent developments have alarmed organisations representing disabled people. Before 2020, there was a fund that provided financial aid to disabled people running for elective office, but that fund has not yet been reinstated. And also: its being argued that in the Prime Minister's lat…

The Transport (Scotland) Act has been in place since 2019, which includes a nation-wide ban of parking cars on pavements. But only in December 2023 were local councils across Scotland given the powers to enforce fines of up to £100 to people doing so. Some local councils are saying that they need more funding and resources to be able to conduct ass…

Andrew Lennox took over as the CEO of The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association in September 2023. We thought we'd give him a little time to get his feet under the table but now he joins us to describe his vision for the future of the charity and what they plan to do about the long waiting lists for new and replacement dogs. Roger Sharp has always h…

Stuart Hann is The Blind Chocolatier and he has a small shop in the Lake District. Stuart worked as a pastry Chef before he was diagnosed with Leber's Hereditary Optic Neuropathy in 2015. It is a rare eye condition that impacts his central vision. Stuart is now registered legally blind and uses various adaptations in his kitchen and shop to create …

Peter White pays a visit to the school that he used to attend, now called New College Worcester, to find out how some of the current pupils are preparing for Christmas. They tell him about what is happening at the college over the festive period, how they deal with the chaos of present unwrapping and knowing who has got what and they discuss inappr…

Ophthalmology is the busiest outpatient speciality in the NHS, with 8 million attendances in England in the last two years. However, there is a crisis of capacity and many patients are not receiving the specialist treatment that they need to retain their vision. The Eyes Have It is a partnership are trying to change that. It is comprised of the Mac…

When you have a visual impairment, it can be very valuable for your own wellbeing to connect with other visually impaired people and share tips and advice on life. And when you are a young person with a visual impairment, there can be a lot to think about in regard to your future. Well, sight loss charity Look UK is aiming to bridge the gap for you…

A few weeks ago, many In Touch listeners would have given a huge sigh of relief when it was announced that the plans to close ticketing offices at England's train stations had been revised. That got us thinking about what is happening elsewhere in the UK. In Scotland, there are no plans to close any ticket offices but, following a consultation, min…

AbilityNet TechShare Pro was a technology conference that happened last week, hosted by HSBC and organised by the charity AbilityNet. AbilityNet's ambition is to get more disabled people involved with technology. The conference brought together some of the biggest names within the tech industry to discuss recent developments and what can be expecte…

Anthony Doerr's 2014 war novel All The Light We Cannot See has been adapted into a four-part TV series on Netflix. The story is based in Nazi-occupied France during World War Two, and revolves around a blind character called Marie-Laure LeBlanc and a German boy, Werner Pfennig, who is pressed into serving as an anti-German radio broadcast intercept…

Social media can be a good way for visually impaired people to connect with their community, but some recent changes to X (previously named Twitter), may have made that difficult for some visually impaired people. With the helping hand of two Matts - Matt Johnson, who is a blind data protection and privacy lawyer, and Matt Eason, who is a digital a…

The government's plans to close hundreds of train ticket offices in England have been cancelled. Since the plans were announced, we here at In Touch have been discussing the implications of the proposed closures for blind and partially sighted people. Now, we have invited a number of visually impaired people, campaign groups and Transport Focus, wh…

We hear from two blind women about their experiences of living through the current conflict in Palestine and Israel. Dalal Al-Taji lives in Khan Yunis in the south of the Gaza Strip and Heather Stone lives in the northern area of Tel Aviv in Israel. They speak frankly about how their lives have been affected and dealing with the uncertainty of bein…

Vlad and Valeria Yeschenko are a young newly-wed Ukrainian couple. Vlad was clearing out and dismantling mines when one exploded, resulting in severe injuries, including the loss of his eyesight. The couple got married soon after Vlad's recovery. The BBC's senior international reporter, Orla Guerin visited the couple in their home at the edge of Ky…

Izabela Dłużyk is a blind female sound recordist from Poland. She tells Peter about her passion for sound recording, bird song and one of the last primeval forests in Europe, the Białowieża. She was recently the subject of a documentary with BBC World Service called Izabela in the Forest, where producer Monica Whitlock follows her around during one…

We discuss techniques for learning languages when you are visually impaired. Nowadays there are many methods that can be used; be it braille, smart phone apps, listening via synthetic speech etc and so we invited four visually impaired language enthusiasts to share their tips and experiences. Each of them use languages in different ways such as tea…

Inclusive Farm in Bedfordshire is more than just a livestock farm. It is run by totally blind Mike Duxbury and his sighted partner and they open the farm up to those with disabilities to explore agriculture. In Touch pays a visit to hear about how Mike performs various farming tasks without any sight and, perhaps most importantly, to meet some of t…

Be My AI is an artificial intelligence engine that is being tested by Be My Eyes - an app that connects visually impaired smartphone users to sighted assistance. There are thousands of people currently testing the AI offering and it allows them to take pictures of their surroundings and the AI will describe, with great detail, what is in that image…

We are hosting a question and answer session with the charity Guide Dogs. Many of you have been sending us your very considered questions and concerns about various aspects of how the organisation operates; including waiting lists, training methods, eligibility for new and replacement guide dogs and more. Answering these questions is Pete Osborne, …

Since 2017, the charity Guide Dogs have adopted a new way of training their dogs. It's called the STEP method, standing for Standardised Training for Excellent Partnerships. The method has received a lot of criticism, with people believing it is the cause of long waiting lists for new and replacement dogs, and so we paid a visit to a training centr…

The International Blind Sports Federation has just concluded its first World Games in the UK, with most sports taking place across the University of Birmingham campus. Over a thousand athletes from 70 countries competed in various sports and for some, it was not just a medal on the cards, but also qualification points for the 2024 Paralympics. We a…

Faricimab, or as it is commercially known Vabysmo, is a drug that has recently been approved for use by the NHS to treat two eye diseases: diabetic macular oedema (DMO) and age-related macular degeneration (AMD), with fewer injections. Both conditions result in vision loss caused by swelling behind the eye, which can now be slowed or halted by inje…

The RNIB recently advertised the role of Customer Support Officer, but there was a particular bit of wording that drew an instant and indignant reaction from a number of blind and partially sighted people who read it. The initial advert stated that the systems used within the role were not compatible with JAWS screen reader. The advert has since be…

Getting braille onto food labelling is the subject of an ongoing campaign by a number of disability groups in Scotland. Oban and District Access Panel, Disability Equality Scotland and Sight Scotland have taken their campaign to the Scottish Government and are currently seeking visually impaired people's experiences and preferences when it comes to…

Dr Yusuf Osman was frequently getting information from the Department for Work and Pensions in a form that was inaccessible to him. This led to him to bringing a judicial review and he won it. Yusuf, along with the RNIB's Senior Legal Advisor Samantha Fothergill, describe what the ruling means for him and other visually impaired people. Finding som…

When being diagnosed with sight loss, it is often essential to be able to access your local sight loss support services quickly. This can be for things like long cane training, to guidance on Personal Independence Payments. We discuss the impacts of delays in accessing these services and the Certificate of Vision Impairment (CVI). If eligible, this…

Selina Mills and Andrew Leland have both just published new books about blindness. Andrew's is called The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight and Selina's is Life Unseen: A Story of Blindness. Both books have similar themes, in that they assess where the societal attitudes towards blindness may have originated from and how they subse…

Tennis has long been considered one of the hardest sports to adapt, especially if you have little or no vision. Well, it has been done and Amanda Green from Metro Blind Sport and VI tennis player herself, tells us about the history of where the adapted game came from. Amanda, along with totally blind player Monica Smith, also tell us about how it i…