What is The Access Card?
The Access Card means different things to different people; these are uses which vary between individuals and context used.
It is an ID card for disabled people that indicates what their legal rights might be and gives businesses an indication of the support they need to provide.
Proof of Access Requirements
When booking tickets/spaces and then accessing free essential companion spaces; it is proportionate and reasonable to make sure that the person requesting that adjustment has a genuine need for them. In these circumstances, organisations ask for proof of disability/access requirements.
There is little consistency of what constitutes ‘proof.’
It becomes a problem for disabled people having to repeatedly submit personal and confidential information. The Access Card is a one-stop-shop for assessing need and communicating bits across multiple providers giving consistency for customers and organisations.
An Access Card is only issued to disabled people who are able to provide a suitable degree of supporting information. This information includes things such as a doctor’s report, entitlement to disability-related benefits or any other type of supporting information.
Communication of Disabled Person’s Needs
In the course of submitting the application for an Access Card, the symbols assigned indicate the type of reasonable adjustment a person may need in accessing the service.
This has the impact of becoming a useful customer service tool meaning that your staff are able to concentrate on meeting a person’s needs rather than assessing entitlement.
Communicating your Organisation’s Ability to your Customers Needs
The use of symbols and their focus on identifying barriers means that you, as a service provider, are able to describe in detail the services that you can provide to meet customers’ needs.
We ask providers to take time to think about how they can meet each of the needs indicated on the card and to submit a listing to the Access Card website directories.
This listing details the particular reasonable adjustments available and becomes an access statement to better inform a disabled customer of what to expect in terms of access.
NB: This is a completely free service for your organisation.
Loyalty Card
By submitting a unique offer for disabled people and attracting them to use your service for the first time; you will be show-casing the accessibility of your service and therefore attract return custom.
Disabled people and their families’ choice of venue and activities, explicitly to whether the venue is accessible to the disabled person themselves. This decision making represents an estimated combined spending power of disabled people and their close friends and family equating to about £212 billion a year (over £15 billion on tourism).
This spending power of disabled people in the United Kingdom is known as the Purple Pound