Here is a Space

Fill it with your Ideas

MPH Studios Special Offer MPH Studios are pleased to announce a new rate for studio hire. From the 1st September 2012 our TV studio is available dry-hire for £200 per half day and £300 per full day*. The space is perfect for small to mid-scale video productions with infinity cove, chroma walls and air-conditioning. It’s a versatile environment, ideal for project work for everything from software development to advertising. Come and have a look for yourselves and see the possibilities for your production. Refreshments and meals can also be arranged. Terms and conditions *Prices are dry-hire only. A half-day is 4 hours. A full day is 8 hours. The studio opening times are 8.30am - 5pm other time slots may be available, but must be

agreed in advance. Any over-run will be charged at £50 per hour. Rigging and de-rigging must be within the specified times for full or half day. We also have our excellent audio studios and a full production team. Whether you would like us to produce

your programme from beginning to end or you simply wish to hire our space then we can facilitate this for you.

For further information on our Media Services please contact us

MPH Newsletter

Autumn 2012

Contact our Studios Team on studios@mph-uk.com or contact 0191 4386063 to arrange a visit

MPH launches new web presence

We launched our new website in August and initial reactions have been excellent. It is still on the same web address www.mph-uk.com but the aim was to represent our current services and to make the site easier to navigate.

Alan Matthews, Group MD said; “I was concerned that the old site was somewhat wordy and did not represent the range of services that we offer as fully as it might. It was great for its time and the work done on this by the original team made sure that everyone knew the scale of what we did. The new website is somewhat more concise in its approach.” Ray Clarke, MD and Principal Designer at C&C Design, the team which developed the new site said; “MPH Group are in the fortunate position of being well known in their trading arena, it is a pleasure to be able to simply represent the whole scale of what the company does without getting too buried in advertising blurb. The site is clean and honest in its approach, very much in keeping with the company ethos of how they trade.” Ray, pictured here with Alan went on to say; “It is so good for C&C Design to work with a company which specialises in access to all environments including web-sites. It has been a real learning curve for us and interpreting the requirements of Alan and his team has been of benefit to them and to us. Our remit from Alan was to show simply and cleanly the services on offer from MPH Group and

to ensure the site could be navigated simply also. It took a while to get to the look and feel that was required but once we had this it came together remarkably quickly.”

If you want more information about our web accessibility services contact Jim Taylor at MPH on 0191 438 6063 or e-mail j.taylor@mph-uk.com

For information on C&C Design and their excellent services, you can contact Ray Clarke or any member of his team on Tel: 0191 341 0059 or e-mail: studio@designcc.co.uk

www.mph-uk.com re-launches

View our services at www.mph-uk.com

Refurbishment Programmes should consider Access

MPH Accessible Environments Principal Access Consultant Mr Jim Taylor has put out a call to all Facilities Managers, Architects and Interior Design Consultants to consider access when developing refurbishment programmes. Jim, pictured here said; “It is incumbent upon us all to consider access to buildings. This is not only a requirement when developing a new building but whenever we make changes even those we might consider minor. There is so much can be achieved with colour and tonal contrast or with adding lighting into our signage and way finding strategies. Removing or reducing internal thresholds, changing handles to “easygrip” types, ensuring we have drop counters; the approaches to the buildings are as accessible as we are making the internal spaces. Everything we do in this aspect helps not only disabled people but all users of our building stocks.” Jim went on to say; “It is always a sadness to me that over seventy percent of all budgets

are spent on ensuring wheelchair access, not that I have any axe to grind about this, my main concern is that many Facilities Managers feel that they need to assign massive budgets to make a building accessible when in reality it can be achieved within their normal budgets for refurbishment and repairs.” The strap line for Jim’s section is “You make it exciting, we make it accessible” and if anyone can it is Jim. He has been a founder member of the Access Association and is an experienced architect in his own right. If you want to contact

Jim or his team please call him on 0191 438 6063 or e-mail: j.taylor@mph-uk.com otherwise you can contact via our web site.

Visit our new site and give us your comments

Courses to suit all abilities and to suit all budgets. Why not contact us for more information

Portable Customer Care

Packs

Only £42.50

What does the Single Equality Act

mean to you and your organisation? When the Single Equality Act was introduced in 2010 it brought all discrimination law including the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) together, one piece of legislation. This Act now refers to ‘protected characteristics’ with disability being just one of those among many others. Those individuals with protected characteristics have had legislation covering their rights in the past, however this is now embedded into the single duties equalities act.

The principles that were embodied within the DDA still exist so for example ‘Reasonable Adjustments’ and ‘Compliance’ are still valid, alongside access for disabled people to goods, facilities, services and premises. It is vital to note however, that the act also now puts the oweness on you as a service provider to pre-consider that you will have customers who will not be able to access your printed materials for instance and to ensure you have allowed for this provision. It is also very important to understand that if someone has identified a need such as braille for instance, then you must make every effort to ensure you continue to write to that customer in their preferred format in all future communications from your organisation and this will include marketing and direct mailing. How can we help? Consultancy Policies, Practices & Procedures Our consultants can provide a range of advisory services for you to develop your policies and the way you do business, which will ensure that you have given due consideration to all people accessing your services.

Our pragmatic approach will aid in developing these within budgetary constraints and also ensuring that those developed are effective. We can audit current policies to make sure that you are covered for these eventualities also.

Single Equality Act

Order your Customer Care Packs on 0191 4386063

Buildings MPH sits quietly and comfortably client-sided or as design team members providing timely, cost-effective advice and guidance for trouble-free barrier-free inclusion. Whatever your project might be the principles and our role remain constant. We are here primarily to help you because we understand building, budget, site limitations and pragmatism. We are professional too having National Register of Access Consultant (NRAC) membership, guaranteeing quality reliable and consistent advice. The same is true for our site ‘accessibility’ audits and training delivery on a whole range of disability related subjects.

Legal We have two solicitors who are fully experienced in the legal aspects of the Equality Act and this supports all of the work we undertake for our clients. It is essential for you, that what we are advising is within the law and protects you from litigation. Access to our Lawyers can be easily obtained via our normal contact channels.

Insurance We are indemnified to the sum of five million pounds for the advice and services that we offer. We can provide our insurance certificate if required. We take great pride in what we do for our clients. Printing We can produce all of your transactional, customer communication, marketing or direct mailing needs in accessible formats. MPH provides this quickly and cost effectively. Contacting your clients in the format of their choice simply is the best PR you can get. If we can do all of this, just think! What can we do for you?

Does your organisation need our

legal services advice?

Remember that we have Lawyers in-

house, who can advise on any Equalities Act issues.

Contact our Legal Team on:

0191 438 6063 and speak to Helen Cleary or Steve Frake.

Single Equality Act

Contact us if you would like more advice on the Single Equality Act

MPH Training & Conference Centre

For your entire training venue, conference or meeting needs, why not use the North East’s favourite venue with on-site catering and fresh produce used can suit any dietary

requirements. ‘We take the strain, you are left to train’

Contact the centre team on: bookings@mph-uk.com or call: 0191 4952895

MPH asked to present at a Russian

Conference on Access MPH have been asked to present their access skills to a conference in Sochi, Russia in October of this year. Alan Matthews, Group MD said; “Jim Taylor, my Principal Access Consultant and I were in Russia for a while in June and met a number of people and apparently more importantly we got quite a bit of media coverage when we were there. This resulted in a flurry of contacts asking to see us and asking if we would be availible for a number of projects. The exciting part of this for me is that we are looking at advising the Sochi Olympic University on their access strategy and also looking at the infrastructure and legacy implications of the 2014 winter Olympics with them.” Alan added; “The other really exciting thing is that we are here at the beginning of Russia trying to change its attitude to disabled people and we can ensure that mistakes that have been made in the past are learned from and that Russia, as a country and people have a real opportunity to get things right. It was obvious to us that they had the commitment and the drive to do so.” It was apparent when Alan and Jim were out there that there was a lot of work to do to aid Russia in catching up with European and British Legislation.

Another MPH Service is launched

For information contact us on 0191 438 6063

Easyread

MPH Easybill service Do you have any customers, who you think do not understand your statements or household bills? MPH has a brand new service called “Easybill.” This is a statement or bill format, which is broken down into an easyread format for ease of use and understanding.

Trials of this have proven very successful and it can take away some of the pressure from collecting debts from people whom you are not sure understand their bill in the first place. Those of you who use our “Easyread” service know how effective plain and concise information can be. You may have colleagues or have customers with learning or language difficulties this is the service which may help them. Easyread expert Hayley McLaren said; “Those customers we used in our trials have seen a marked increase in their understanding of the benefits of direct debits, they understand their use of the services we are describing far

better and probably more importantly they understand the need to pay their bill on time.” If you want more information about our “Easybill” service or any of our accessible formats why not contact our Production Team on 0191 4386063 or email Coreen at cward@mph-uk.com or Teresa at tburge@mph-uk.com

Behind the scenes at MPH The reason we can offer such excellent prices to our customers is generally because of the prices we get from our suppliers. Those who know Gemma Kernan our Admin Team Leader will know it is very hard to say no to her. Gemma, pictured here has been with MPH for 10 years. Carol Matthews, Admin Manager says; “Gemma and her team work extremely hard to make sure we can offer the very best prices to our clients. If I needed someone on my side in a crisis, I would pick Gemma every time.”

Easybill Services

Contact Coreen Ward or Teresa Burge for questions on Easybill

MPH Short listed for a National

Award MPH were recently shortlisted in a National Awards. The recent enei awards allowed us an opportunity to represent ourselves. Alan Matthews said; “Generally we do not wish to get any publicity for the services we offer. This has always been our aim as we strongly feel that any plaudits to be had should go to our clients for having the insight to offer accessible services likewise if there were complaints then they should also hear about them, thankfully these are incredibley rare.” Alan added; “It was nice to be up there representing ourselves, it was odd as many of our clients were also short-listed for awards and instead of representing them we were representing ourselves as employers of disabled people. We have always employed older and disabled people along with a good mix of younger and able-bodied people. This works really well for us and I can highly recommend this, especially as I am now older and disabled myself!”

Helen Cleary and Steve Frake are the lawyers who support the companies HR function, and pictured left with some of the team who aid in this function, Carol Matthews, Lyndsey Burdis, June Brewis and at the back MD Alan Matthews. Helen said; “We are also pleased to say that we have been short listed for an award in our region for the fourth time and it is always a confirmation that we are at least doing some things right in employment. This is particularly gratifying at this time of economic recession.

We know that MPH are committed to being fair to their employees and the company wishes to ensure it maintains its diverse and talented workforce.” Steve Frake added; “We have recently undertaken a diversity survey of our employees and it is very satisfying to see that we probably outperform many large companies in the diverse range of our workforce.”

National Award for MPH

MPH - Your Total Disability Service