Travelling to the UK with a disability – by Sev and Heather
For people with a disability especially with a wheelchair it is tricky to travel. Some people are not aware that they can fly with their powered wheelchair because if you go through a travel agent they will get told that you can’t because the batteries are classed as a dangerous good. All you have to do to be able to fly is contact whatever company you are flying with, with what type the batteries are, the weight and size of the wheelchair and how to disconnect the batteries they will then email you book with a Dangerous Good certificate that you will have to print off and give it to the check in people.
From there they will ask you some questions about the wheelchair and if you need an aisle chair or an eagle hoist, some companies have these but others don’t. Then you go through to the gate from there. The ground crew will take your wheelchair to put it on board.
The UK is one of the most accessible countries in the world, every hotel room has an emergency cord and accessible bathroom. How we travelled around London and Glasgow we hired a wheelchair accessible van, for me to be transferred in the hotel we hired a portable hoist.
Every place that we went to have an accessible bathroom some places even had an accessible bathroom with a ceiling hoist, a change table and some of those even had a shower.
Not all shops that we went to were pretty flat for me to enter but some that did have a step had a small ramp for me to enter.
In my opinion Glasgow was a bit more wheelchair accessible and a lot more people would help us out if we needed help.
It’s a lot easier to travel around the UK with a car over public transport because a lot of the public transport is not accessible. We hired the van from Angel Vehicle Hire. They are amazing. They would get someone to meet you at the airport with the car, tell you what you need to know and you just tell them where to pick the car up when you are finished with it. With the hiring of the portable hoist I think you can request a sling but we brought my own.
This time around travelling to the UK was so much better, I brought 2 support workers on this trip which was helpful especially on the plane to and from the UK. I would definitely recommend writing a service agreement for both support workers to sign.
I would definitely love to go back to the UK eventually.