Emma Purcell

Social enterprise Access Rating has launched a new campaign called “What access means to me”, where people of the disability community share their thoughts on what access is to them. This could be having adequate wheelchair access in buildings, include Changing Places toilets in all venues, having information available in alternative formats, such as audio, braille and BSL, and reasonable adjustments for those with neurodiverse conditions....

Due to my physical disability, I use a powered wheelchair full-time and require mobility aids to carry out personal care. Plus, I have weekly physiotherapy to maintain my muscles and posture. I attend sessions at my former college, Treloar’s, where they have a dedicated physio department with specially trained therapists and high-quality equipment....

I love travelling around the UK to attend gigs, festivals, theatre shows and visiting friends. Plus I have to attend many appointments at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. For some of these journeys, I travel by train to get to my destination. However, being a wheelchair user does come with many barriers in order to access a train, platform, carriage or staff assistants when using the rail network. In this guest blog post, I share five inaccessible dilemmas I’ve experienced on train journeys:

In this guest blog post, I would like to share five mobility aids that I use when carrying out personal care and accessing areas in my home...

Emma’s guest post is the 31st post in the segment on my blog, called “The Reality Of…” which gives others the ability to share their story and raise awareness of the disabilities, illnesses, impairments and invisible illnesses that they have. Hi, my name is Emma Purcell and I’m a 25-year-old blogger, freelance writer and journalism graduate from Hampshire. I currently live in Alton but was born and raised in the area of Portsmouth. I was born with Quadriplegic Cerebral Palsy and became registered blind in 2005...

Growing up, I’ve experienced both mainstream and specialist schools and both had their positives and negatives....

A SCHOOLGIRL created a replica of the Titans and set it sail in the waters of the Solent...

IF LIFE gives you lemons then make lemonade that's how the saying goes and that's what a Fareham schoolgirl did to make money for charity...