It was great to join Emily and Sarah at the Kidz to Adultz event at the Farnborough Airport Exhibition Centre on 12/05/26. What a fantastic event with so many exhibitors, organisations, and of course service users all coming together under one roof. Events like these are such a valuable opportunity to share information, make connections, and celebrate the amazing support available for disabled children, young people, and adults. Already looking forward to attending again next year!

- Clive Bassant
   Community Liaison and Engagement Officer

The Kent and Medway Wheelchair Service is committed to supporting the health, wellbeing, and social inclusion of wheelchair users across our communities.

I’ve put together our latest updates, and insights to keep you informed and engaged. From details on upcoming events, including the dates for our next Service User Engagement Forum, to details of Wheelchair Sports and how you can get involved.

Service User Engagement Forum (SUEF)

Are you a wheelchair user, carer, or family member of a wheelchair user? Would you like to help shape better services?

Come along and have your say at our next Service User Engagement Forum. We will discuss our usual topics, and of course, you will have the chance to share any feedback or recent experiences you’ve had with our service.

If you have any questions or concerns, we’ll be happy to answer and help. If you have any ideas you'd like to share on how we can improve the service, we'd love to hear from you. 

🗓️ Wednesday 18th March 2026 from 11:30am
📍 Online via Teams or in person at our Gillingham service Centre
(Kent and Medway Wheelchair Service, 1 Ambley Green, Gillingham, Kent, ME8 0NJ)

✅ Service updates from the Operational team, clinical lead and the service as a whole.
✅ Details of any upcoming events in the local community.
✅ Information on projects Clive, our CLEO, is involved with.
✅ Talk about our new website - we welcome your feedback!

All are welcome! To register your interest, please email Clive Bassant, the CLEO for Kent and Medway Wheelchair Service, at Clive.Bassant@rosscare.co.uk or email Nicola at Nicola.Armstrong@rosscare.co.uk

Lead by Archie Beaumont and Beth Miller

Kent and Medway Wheelchair Service would like to hear from our younger service users! If you are under the age of 30 and would like to tell us about your experience, good or not so good, then come along to our group.

We have guest speakers in attendance on the day, who will be offering their help & advice.

• Sophie Fournel from Disability Assist
• WetWheels
• Archie Beaumont and Beth Miller (Wheelchair Rugby)
• The Education People (Shane Forster)
• Whizz-Kidz

🗓️ Wednesday 18th February from 11:30am - 2pm
📍 Our Gillingham Service Centre at 1 Ambley Green, Gillingham, Kent, ME8 0NJ

Email Nicola.Armstrong@rosscare.co.uk to book your place

“My name is Julie and I joined the Wheelchair Service in Gillingham in November 2025.

I qualified as an Occupational Therapist in 2002 in London. I began the first 4 years of my career as an OT in Northern Ireland where I was born and brought up and worked in The Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast..."

Wild with Wheels was founded by Gini, a wheelchair user who recognised the need for inclusive outdoor experiences for people with mobility aids.

Healthwatch Kent and Healthwatch Medway are your local independent champion for health and social care. Our aim is to improve services by ensuring local voices are heard. We do this by going out into the local community to speak with anyone who wants to share a recent experience they or a loved one has had with health and/or social care services. We use your experiences to better understand the challenges facing the NHS and other care providers. We have the power to make sure NHS leaders and other decision makers listen to your feedback and improve standards of care.

Our website hosts articles of accurate information and clear advice on an array of different topics to help you feel empowered to make the right decision about your health and social care.  

Click here to learn more about your local Healthwatch and how you can have your say

Charging your wheelchair and other things to take into account: 

1. Chargers are designed to be used overnight, even if you are using the chair for 15 mins during the day, the charger is designed to charge the chair to capacity.
2. If you are not using your chair for an extended period (a week plus), put it on charge overnight once every 4-5 days.
3. Please avoid picking at the arm pads.
4. Please avoid cigarette burns on the fabric and cushions.
5. Please refrain from pressure washing powered wheelchairs.
6. The chair should not be stored outside.

Do you need an engineer? 

• If there is excessive movement in anything, even non safety pieces of the chair, please call for an engineer to resolve it as tightening a bolt is far easier and cheaper than replacing a complete arm side, and it needs to be fixed whatever happens, suffering through it is not a good idea.
• If you call for a repair, and something else happens between the initial call and the engineer arriving, please call again and have this added to the existing job as we may be able to fix both things in one visit.
• Photos are very helpful for identifying parts, but make sure to include an overall photo of the chair as sometimes the close ups do not help, and having a tape measure can also help.
• The engineers are under time constraints, we are very aware that the next job could either be 5 mins, or 2 hours, please be out of the chair (if possible) so that the engineer can get the job started quickly.
• Please maintain a level of cleanliness of the chair, our engineers cannot work on chairs if there is risk of contamination.
• We will endeavour to provide you either an AM or PM appointment, but please bear in mind we cannot give you guarantees as we are unable to predict how previous jobs will go.

The Wheelchair Alliance has called on Government to remove ‘ridiculous’ guidance that could see children needing driving licences for wheelchairs. Here, Nick Goldup, COO and chair of the Alliance explains more.

The Wheelchair Alliance is an organisation which represents the voices of wheelchair users and we have urged the Government to act now on an update to current guidance that would require disabled children to have driving licences and insurance for their powered wheelchairs.