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About Us

Independent Living – what’s it all about?

As you have clicked the “About Us” link, you are probably here to find out more about the organisation behind the Independent Living website!

A little history…

Independent Living has been online continuously for more than 21 years now. We have been providing impartial information about living independently with a disability since the last millennium.

We set up the site in the first place simply because there was nowhere to find out about products and services that could make daily living and mobility easier.

To be honest, there weren’t nearly so many websites around anyway back in the 1990s, but there certainly wasn’t a single place you could visit with information about a range of different suppliers’ products.

Bigger and better, but still recognisably the same

So here we are, and the current version of the site is, of course, very much bigger, and looks rather different, although we have retained certain elements of the original design, notably the dark blue and orange colour motif, so that returning visitors would always recognise the site, even after one of the periodic redesigns.

What’s different?

One of the resources we have introduced in more recent years is our weekly News Roundup.

Sent out by email every Wednesday, it is a really convenient way to stay in touch with all the latest news around independent living, including product developments, changing legislation, news about benefits, insights into nutrition, exercise and fitness… just about anything that catches the editor’s attention!

You can sign up for your own copy here (and no, we won’t EVER share your details with any other organisation)

And if you like, you can browse the online archive of previous issues

And who are we?

Frances Leckie Associates is the company behind the site. A marketing consultancy which has been involved with adaptive products and assistive technology for approaching 25 years. Like most marketing consultants, we get very enthused about our clients’ industries, and from working with one company who manufactured accessible showers, we found ourselves more and more involved in the market for mobility and daily living aids.

That company was one of our first site subscribers, when Independent Living started selling showcase pages to reputable suppliers, in order to finance the work of providing independent information – and they are still with us, even though they have been sold a couple of times along the way, and now don’t even have the same name!

No, we aren’t part of government or a charity…

Occasionally, people ask whether we are a charity or a government organisation – or assume that we are. We aren’t.

We took a decision early on that Independent Living would be entirely free from interference by any statutory bodies, and after many years of subsidising it with the work of our marketing consultancy, it is now largely self-supporting.

That said, it would be impossible to provide the service that we do to an average of 12,000 visitors a day without the dedication of those who deal with all the enquiries they make, on a voluntary basis.

If you would like to talk to us about Independent Living, you can email us using the “contact us” button at the top of the page, or phone +44 (0)208 133 0628.

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