DLCs - Impartial Advisers or Mobility Retailers?

It is now 10 years that the Independent Living website has been here, providing impartial information for carers and disabled or elderly individuals looking for equipment and services to help them manage more independently.

Perhaps not surprisingly, site visitors have sometimes confused us with the local organisations which are generally known as an Independent Living Centre or Disabled Living Centre. Given the similarity of the names, it is an understandable mistake, and to be honest, considering ourselves all to be in the same business of providing information without strings, we have not chafed at the confusion, and have often directed enquirers to their nearest DLC, as the place where they could try out a range of equipment without any commercial pressure.

Sadly, this fundamental fact about ILCs or DLCs is not a fact.

Depending on which centre you visit, you may indeed find that you can view a range of equipment, and perhaps try it out, or you may find that you are in a mobility retailer.

Without any apparent debate, it seems that a number of DLCs have turned themselves into shops. I find this difficult to understand on a number of levels. First, and most significantly, the entire raison d'être for an independent advice centre is to provide independent advice. As soon as the people giving the advice are also selling products, it is no longer independent. Individuals visiting a DLC are doing so almost always because they don't know the options available, and they should be able to expect a fair overview of the market, rather than a nudge towards whichever products the centre manager has for sale, regardless of their suitability.

However well-intentioned the staff at a centre where products are sold, they cannot possibly be fulfilling the brief to give impartial advice: they may well say that there is no pressure on people to buy, and that if the visitor is not happy with what they have for sale, they refer them to other stockists, but that is not the point. Inevitably, a person who is not familiar with mobility aids will be swayed by the selection that has already been made by the expert they are consulting. It may not even occur to them to ask about other possibilities.

My second concern is that Independent Living Centres often have charitable status - they are certainly all grouped under an umbrella organisation, Assist UK, which is a charity. I have written here before about charities that muddy the waters between themselves and commercial operators - Is Charity Just Another Big Business? - and I fear that this may be another example of enterprises that should be at one remove from commercial activities, getting involved regardless.

Having sought feedback across the network, the responses I have received underline the confusion. They range from what I would have thought defined an ILC:

"... in general all centres offer impartial advice so don't retail, all centres have a good range of equipment for people to try and most employ an occupational therapist." Swindon ILC

and "We do not sell anything, but our clients are given advice about how to proceed and also given information about manufacturers and retailers." The William Merritt Disabled Living Centre (Leeds)

To "a range of daily living and mobility aids for people to 'try and buy'....We are currently in the process of expanding our service, so much more will be available in the coming months." Inspire Community Trust, Kent

and "We do have some products in stock to sell, if not we are usually able to get them in with in 2 days." Disability Equipment Bradford

A look at the Disabled Living Foundation (the London DLC) website makes it absolutely clear that they don't sell any products, yet I understand that Manchester, one of the largest in the country, is well advanced with plans to integrate a retail and online shopping facility into their advice centre.

My researches suggest that perhaps twice as many don't sell as do; it is certainly not yet universal, and indeed there seems to be concern in some more traditional centres at the idea of getting involved in sales.

Surely this debate should have been conducted in an open fashion, rather than allowing commercialisation to creep up on what were centres of excellent, impartial advice, in a backdoor way. If you went to your local Citizens Advice Bureau, and they offered to sell you the services of a debt consolidation company, how would you feel? Would you still trust them to give you the best advice without commercial consideration, or would it seem that they had lost their special, trustworthy status?

There are many people working in this field who don't want Independent Living Centres turned into mobility shops - there are plenty of those around already. Despite the steps that have already been taken along this path, it isn't too late at least to ask the question, and challenge all those people involved to let us know why the ethos of DLCs has been changed in this way.

Do please add your comments to the discussion - just click the comment button, and if you prefer to remain anonymous, you can!

Supermarkets Selling Mobility and Daily Living Aids

Two major supermarkets, Asda and the Co-op, have both recently launched into the sale of mobility and daily living aids. The attractions for them are quite clear - we all know about the demographic shift which is growing this market as longevity increases and the post-war baby boomers become pensioners, demanding an increasing range of products to help maintain independence and quality of life.

Having already diversified successfully from their core food lines, where competition is fierce and margins narrow, into areas such as fashion, electronics and homewares, the supermarkets are keen to repeat the trick, using their strong branding and purchasing power to develop new and profitable ranges. Which in some ways is fine - as consumers we have certainly benefitted from the might of the big retailers driving down the cost of our weekly shop and increasing the variety of goods we can conveniently buy under one roof.

There are some daily living aids which fit perfectly well into the supermarket model, such as easy grip utensils, big button phones and remote controls, bath rails and non-slip mats - but I really think we need to ask the question: should walking aids, for example, be regarded as just another product to pick off the shelf along with the washing powder and coffee? Given that somebody who is looking to buy a walking frame necessarily has difficulties walking, and that choosing the wrong one could cause them additional problems, should we not be ensuring that they can talk to someone who is well-trained in assessing such needs and recommending a suitable solution, rather than leaving them to take whatever their local supermarket has decided to stock?

Co-op Xest, the website and catalogue via which the Co-op is selling their range, does not include wheelchairs: interviewed by the BBC, their spokesperson said: “... we are not selling wheelchairs and we have just under 1000 products, but wheelchairs are not amongst them because of the specialist advice that you need.”

Asda, on the other hand, appears to have no such qualms - visitors to the 75 stores piloting the sale of mobility products will be able to buy a wheelchair for significantly less than £100. Their spokesperson indicated that giving specialist advice would not be a problem as he expected their customers would obtain the necessary information from the NHS before purchasing from them. An interesting idea, but one that doesn't really stand up to close scrutiny. Will checkout staff be asking buyers whether they obtained appropriate advice before going to the supermarket? And how will they know whether the product they have selected accords with that advice?

This is just the latest example of major mainstream brands rushing to grab their slice of the apparently lucrative special needs market: we have already seen it with bed and easychair suppliers and bathroom manufacturers. You can certainly argue that the increased competition has done wonders for aesthetics: today's mobility and daily living aids bear no resemblance to the ugly functionality of a decade or so ago. But the cost has been an increase in inappropriate selling techniques, with vulnerable people spending significant amounts on products that are unsuitable for them, because the supplier is more concerned with making a sale than meeting the user's needs.

Having spent twenty years in this business; ten of them editing the Independent Living website, advising people always to make sure that they try a range of mobility products - ideally in an impartial environment such as a Disabled Living Centre - before buying, I am more than a little concerned at the involvement of the supermarkets. Selling mobility aids is about more than simply shifting boxes, and I think we all need to give this new development some careful thought, rather than sleepwalking into a situation where giant retail chains become the 100lb gorilla in this special market.