Bromley Experts by Experience is a Deaf and Disabled people's organisation funded through our disability justice fund, a partnership with City Bridge Foundation.
We spoke to CEO Nicola Burgess about the barriers her members face, what needs to change, and why the people closest to the issues must be the ones shaping the solutions.
Can you introduce yourself and your organisation?
My name is Nicola Burgess. I’m the CEO of Bromley Experts by Experience. We are a deaf and disabled people’s organisation, which means that all our volunteers, our staff and our trustees have lived experience of disabling barriers - and that includes myself.
We work to support the deaf and disabled community in Bromley and carers in breaking down barriers to inclusion and independence, and ensuring that our world is just as accessible and inclusive for everyone as it can be.
What issues are you working on?
Many of our members are struggling to access healthcare provision because a lot of services are not accessible. They’re not aware of people’s needs and do not meet them.
For example, there are communication barriers. If GP services are unable to provide BSL interpretation, if they’re unable to explain information in an accessible way for somebody who may have a learning disability or difficulty. A lot of health professionals are not educated around autism and sensory needs, and there’s a lack of flexibility - it’s like a one size fits all.
There are a lot of barriers to people participating in everyday life, which then makes isolation even worse
One thing that a lot of our members have said is if they miss an appointment, they have a mark against their name that they did not attend. But it could be because they had a severe health issue that day or a flare up, which meant that they weren’t able to attend. There needs to be more flexibility around appointments, more home visits.
But it’s not just healthcare appointments, it’s other services as well. Support services, even leisure facilities. When we were looking for this office, it took a long time to find an accessible premises because even though a lot of buildings say they’re compliant, in actual fact, when I took my members who are wheelchair users, we weren’t even able to get through some of the doors or use the toilet facilities.
There are a lot of barriers to people participating in everyday life, which then makes isolation even worse and exacerbates their mental health and health conditions further.
We’re also seeing an increasing number of disabled people accessing food banks. So I’m working with the local food bank to set up an anti-poverty alliance, and together we’re going to challenge those inequalities with the council and stakeholders.
What changes do you want to see?
The main thing is genuine consultation. Not just tick-box exercises — but engaging with us in an accessible and meaningful way, because we are the experts.
We know what is best for us. We know what works well, what doesn’t work so well. And by amplifying our voices and listening to us, we can make positive change.
So why not consult us to make things more accessible and beneficial for everyone? In turn this saves them money and helps to prevent crisis.
I've set up a disability inclusion alliance with other disabled people's organisations. We're going to work together to campaign to local councils, especially since there's the local elections coming up. We're also going to be hosting a hustings, where we invite people from each of the main parties to answer questions from our organisations and our members around disability inclusion.
Tell us about Bromley as a borough
Firstly, we have a large divide between rich and poor. There are some affluent parts of the borough, and overall Bromley is seen as a really affluent borough.
Some funders will only fund boroughs in extreme deprivation. However, there are pockets of Bromley that are extremely deprived. So it’s really hard to get funding to outreach to those areas.
The other thing is that Bromley is the largest geographical borough in London. To get from one end of the borough to the other could take in excess of an hour and a half to two hours. There are like little villages that make up Bromley, and some are extremely hard to get to.
We aim to make all our services in a central location because that’s got the best transport links, and we provide transport for anybody who struggles to come to our services. But there are some of our members who say they’re very isolated where they live — there’s not many services local to where they live. And I think that’s a real challenge.