The Fellowship's Strategic Plan

Foreword from Sir Bryan Askew Chairman of the British Polio Fellowship

The British Polio Fellowship has been caring for people with polio since 1939. In those early days the majority of care and support was directed towards young children and young adults who were most susceptible to contracting polio. Since the 1950s with the advent of the Salk vaccine the incidence of polio has gradually been diminishing until the UK has been declared to have eradicated polio. Of course, those young children and young adults who contracted polio in the 40s and 50s have been getting older and now the average age of our membership is 65 years old.

Many of those members are experiencing the onset of post polio syndrome whereby various symptoms from shortness of breath, extreme muscle fatigue, burning sensation in the limbs and difficulty in keeping warm are placing further problems on sometimes delicate bodies.

However, changes in society and the approach to disabled people has been quite positive and enabled our members to play a full and active part in society. The recent changes brought about by the Disability Discrimination Act have been most welcomed by our members who, given the right resources, can indeed live a full and active life. The Fellowship has had to move and adapt with the times as well and from its early beginnings of looking after younger children and young adults we now have to look to the future as to what the wants and needs of an ageing membership will be. At the same time, financial constraints pressed upon the Fellowship from many years of financial deficits have to be faced with stoicism and practicality.

We have therefore looked at our strategic direction for the next three years. An extensive round of consultation with all our stakeholders has been held. These consultations included consulting with our membership, carers, with our branches, groups and regions, with other charities and organisations dealing with both disability issues and with ageing issues, with the general public, with the medical profession and other allied health professionals, with our younger and ethnic minority members and with other stakeholders as and where they could be found. A Strategic Options Plan was drawn up which encompassed the purpose, mission and the vision for the Fellowship together with 44 different strategic options for consideration. All these options were considered in-depth, at a group meeting which included all the Trustees, the Regional Chairmen and staff from Central Office. Consensus was agreed on all the issues.

We now have a vision of where we are going and how we are going to get there and we look forward to the future with renewed hope and vigour and with the determination to ensure the proper provision of the services that our members and other people with polio need.

Sir Bryan Askew

The Strategic Plan is available for download in PDF format - just click on the image of the front cover. You will need Adobe Acrobat reader to open this file, You can download this from Adobe.