We want blind and partially sighted people to remain independent and live full lives.
In 2010/2011 we spent £88,271,000 on the services, support and solutions that enable people to remain independent.
Supporting independence
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Action for Blind People's local teams aided the independence of nearly 30,000 people.
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Our Helpline dealt with nearly half a million enquiries and our website with over two million visitors.
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We sent out over 1.7 million books to users of our library services and over 400,000 specially adapted products were sold to blind and partially sighted people.
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Our Helpline's advice and legal rights teams helped over 26,000 people with in-depth support and advocacy work.
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RNIB and Action benefits advice workers helped to identify previously unclaimed entitlements for 8,451 people, amounting to an amazing £10.8million
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ECLO and Vision Support Services (as they are called in Scotland) were there for almost 14,000 people this year.
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We worked with employers to enable 1,592 people losing their sight to continue in their employment and helped 309 people with sight loss to find work.
Undetected sight problems
Many people with a learning disability have never had their sight tested and are often struggling to cope with complex eye conditions.
Proper assessment of their vision and ongoing support can dramatically improve their quality of life.
This year in order to combat this problem we launched our DVD "Bridge to vision" which was winner of The Herald Society Partnership Award.
The next generation
In 2011 RNIB Pears Centre for Specialist Learning (the new name for Rushton School and Children's Home) opened. It became the only non-maintained school in England to be awarded specialist status for special educational needs cognition and learning.
Protecting your entitlements
The year began with the success of our Attendance Allowance campaign.
We published a joint response to the Government's Welfare Reform Bill with other sight loss charities.
The More than meets the eye report contains in-depth analysis of the proposed reforms and highlights the potential impact, including the facts that many blind and partially sighted people would lose their DLA entitlement from 2013.
Read further highlights in our
Annual Report