Here at Manage At Home, we’re focussed on providing as many options as possible, in order to give you the power to purchase the best possible product for you. From a variety of price ranges, to a wide selection of brands, we believe that ‘I got what’s available’ shouldn’t be your reason for buying a product, and instead we want to help you so that we can hear you say ‘I got what suited my needs best’.
Our latest contributors to our ‘Getting to Know Our Suppliers’ series have been long standing allies with Manage At Home, and have even joined us at a number of our events of the years, including the Great Yorkshire Show in 2019. Enable Access are one of the premiere ramp manufacturers in the UK market, and we’d love for our customers to get to know them better!
Who Are Enable Access?
Enable Access are the UK manufacturers of the RampCentre mobility access ramps and access solutions, and the ExitMaster emergency stairway evacuation chairs. The Enable Access team specialises in innovating, designing and manufacturing access and evacuation solutions here in the UK, being driven by the desire to improve lives. “Made in Britain” is something we’re very proud to promote, and the ability to design and manufacture in this country is especially proving its value currently, with quality of product and ability to maintain supply being so critical.
Where are Enable Access from? Where was the company born?
The company was established in 1998 in Barnet, northwest London, evolving from the background of a small mobility shop. In 2003, we made the big jump into opening our own research and development department and starting our own factory to manufacture our innovations ourselves. From there we’ve continually developed and upgraded our ranges, building off invaluable customer feedback, bringing brand-new cutting-edge access and evacuation ideas to market to make them available for everyone. We’re now based near Hatfield, in Hertfordshire, and are moving again to even larger premises with significantly increased storage and production facilities in Central Bedfordshire later this year!
What got you into the ramp business?
The idea was originally born off the back of real-life experience working with clients through the mobility shop, understanding the challenges they were facing in accessing both their own properties and public places, and being driven to find better solutions! The timing was around the origination of the Disability Discrimination Act in 1995, and there was a growing awareness of the issues disabled people were experiencing, and the inaccessibility of so many houses and public places in the UK at that time. As a country we’ve come a long way since then, but there is still a huge need to continually raise the profile of accessibility and carry on improving access for all.
What is your most popular product and why do you think it’s popular?
A difficult question, as again different products are especially relevant to different users! Our Aerolight lightweight high-capacity full-width ramps would be our flagship range, because they are so lightweight and easy-to-use, have a great weight capacity, and combine with other accessories to handle tricky issues like narrow doorways, long shallow steps and high steps with ease. We especially focus on creative ways to overcome thresholds, and especially awkward fragile uPVC thresholds which is a particular problem for this country, and wheelchair ramp solutions for bridging uPVC thresholds is a special strength of what we do.
If you were to buy one of your own ramps – which would you choose and why?
It depends what I was trying to achieve!! There is sadly no such thing as a one-size-fits-all ramp, but the new Butterfly Ramp is maybe one of the closest things to it, as an adjustable-height threshold bridge solution that can handle multiple different thresholds with ease, without requiring any user adjustment, and is also portable and easy to take with you, for example to a friend’s house. The Aerolight Up & Over ramp kit is also a great choice, as a very simple and effective solution to bridge up and over the top of uPVC thresholds.
How are you enjoying your partnership with Manage At Home as suppliers so far?
The Manage At Home and Medequip teams are great people to work with, as they are friendly, realistic people, who have similar goals to ourselves. The Enable Access mission is “Social inclusion at another level” and this corresponds well with the Manage At Home team’s objective of enabling users to enjoy independent living in their own homes. We’ve worked closely together to provide training and technical support and advice, and to develop the Manage At Home range, and look forward to continuing this great working partnership into the future!