Wheels-on-fire rolling down the road...
- By Brian Leveson
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- 23 Oct, 2021
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Do you want to see a really cool wheelchair? We now have a brand new super cool Chunc wheelchair funded by a Personal Wheelchair Budget. With help from Haringey Wheelchair Services we were able to get a chair quickly and simply using a process that is open to all!
The cool cool features of the incredibly well designed Chunc chair
We are well chuffed with the new Chunc wheelchair.
We wanted the Chunc chair because not only does it have a great and comfortable seating system for our severely disabled son, it also supports his hips, which are starting to deteriorate and his spine, which has a 22 degree curvature. The Chunc has a pommel to stop him sliding out of position and a 6-point harnessing system across his waist, chest and torso to hold him in a good place.
The Chunc is an incredibly light and manoeuvrable chair and it feels like you are handling a top-performing sports car. It has a comfortable pushing position for us, his carers, which can be adjusted according to the height of the carer.
But more than that, it looks cool and is not overly medicalised. We know from past experience, the Chunc capable of some serious travelling and came with us across to Eastern Europe, and a previous Chunc we had is so light yet so hard-wearing it was carried by us up and down an Austrian Alp, so that our son could experience an Alpine waterfall.
On the practical side of cleaning and maintaining the chair, we have always found the Chunc chairs really easy to strip the cushions off and bung into the washing machine. The central chest brace needs a wash after meals and can be fully detached and again bunged straight into the machine. We think we will get a spare brace for this purpose. It's also a great chair to take to the car wash for a hose down of the it's parts. Many a time when camping in France (when we were allowed such indulgences), I'd sneak off with the chair in the early hours of the morning to the local petrol station cum drive thorough laundromat and give the car and the wheelchair a full clean. Ah, those were the day's my friends...
The Chunc is an incredibly light and manoeuvrable chair and it feels like you are handling a top-performing sports car. It has a comfortable pushing position for us, his carers, which can be adjusted according to the height of the carer.
But more than that, it looks cool and is not overly medicalised. We know from past experience, the Chunc capable of some serious travelling and came with us across to Eastern Europe, and a previous Chunc we had is so light yet so hard-wearing it was carried by us up and down an Austrian Alp, so that our son could experience an Alpine waterfall.
On the practical side of cleaning and maintaining the chair, we have always found the Chunc chairs really easy to strip the cushions off and bung into the washing machine. The central chest brace needs a wash after meals and can be fully detached and again bunged straight into the machine. We think we will get a spare brace for this purpose. It's also a great chair to take to the car wash for a hose down of the it's parts. Many a time when camping in France (when we were allowed such indulgences), I'd sneak off with the chair in the early hours of the morning to the local petrol station cum drive thorough laundromat and give the car and the wheelchair a full clean. Ah, those were the day's my friends...
'The Chunc Chair' is designed and built in the UK by a company called CHUNC For more info on this cool cool chair visit the Chunc website via this link: https://www.chunc.com/
The process and timescale of getting a wheelchair using the personal budget system
NHS Planning Guidance includes wheelchairs. It is expected that CCGs will achieve 92% in relation to the 18 week Referral to Treatment standard waiting time for children. This has been reduced from the previous 100% following feedback from key stakeholders and a review of the target. NHS England is holding CCGs to account for performance against this target through the
CCG assurance programme.
For more information see https://www.england.nhs.uk/wheelchair-services/
We plumped for a personal budget because
For more information see https://www.england.nhs.uk/wheelchair-services/
We plumped for a personal budget because
- the old chair was seven years old and had served us well
- there was a need for a new chair as our son is now 16 years old and a lot bigger than when he was 9 years old
- due to his age and growth serious medical issues were arising with his spine and hips
- the time scales that we were given for getting the new CAPPS2 chair was 16 plus weeks (another 4 months or so) due to supply chain issues.
The personal wheelchair budget calculation - show me the money!
The NHS has more information on gettinga personal wheelchair budget here: https://www.england.nhs.uk/personal-health-budgets/personal-wheelchair-budgets/
For more info on this cool cool chair visit https://www.chunc.com/
And another thing - this is MASSIVE
If you thought SEND was bad - the NHS is seemingly prepared to throw away money to private companies
About 3 or 4 times a year we get the euphemistic message 'Parents please note we have put a letter in your child's bag' - its a world away from how a child's death was handled in my child's first school
More of a trial by ordeal than a well organised clearly set out administrative process for moving the care of vulnerable young adults from Haringey's Children's Services to Adult Services. We have been failed at every stage of the process.
Never EVER get on the bus without a camera running if you need the priority wheelchair space
The reality of using a London Bus in the teeming rain on a Sunday afternoon is no joke when the parents of a paraplegic person in a wheelchair clash with the self-entitled buggy-pushing parents of toddlers.
At 3pm today I received some barefaced lies from Haringey Council Adult Social Care in response to a photograph I published online yesterday and the media interest it generated
Haringey SEND Transport are insisting that a 17 year old minibus with no air conditioning is a suitable vehicle to transport my paraplegic son in this heatwave. The appalling conditions inside the minibus inside the bus is something they knew about last summer, yet they have to date done nothing whatsoever provide a suitable minibus this year nor appropriately mitigate the temperatures inside the minibus.The conditions inside the minibus are so bad that they triggered multiple seizures during the heatwave as my son has epilepsy, which they SEND transport department know about and they also know that they are triggered by heat.It is not just son who is impacted: last year we know of one child who died on Haringey SEND Transport in the summer heatwave and another who had seizures.
I am simply asking a question - are we all absolutely certain that the road closure / travel restrictions (commonly know as LTNs) placed on some of the most severely disabled people who are wholly reliant on cars are absolutely necessary
Haringey's road closures exemptions policy for disabled people is not fit for purpose, unduly burdensome and intrusive - it's time to stand up against the pro-LTN lycra-clad cycling bullies
Is the argument for and against exemptions for disabled people in Low Traffic Neighbourhoods really a case of GOOD versus EVIL?
