Ben Owen Jones has joined the Aspire team as our Independent Living Advisor at the Spinal Injuries Centre in Cardiff. The role will see him providing advice and guidance to patients during their rehabilitation, complimenting the work of the NHS teams and bringing in all the other agencies and organisations that can be of use to those who are newly injured.

Ben will be going into the Centre once a week and patients will be able to stop him for a chat on the ward or book him in for appointment. As someone with a spinal injury himself, Ben obviously has his own personal experiences to draw on. But, more than that, all our Advisors undertake training on a range of issues, both when they first join Aspire and then on regular occasions throughout the year as a team.

For Ben, the prospect of starting work at Aspire is exciting:

“I’ve worked in Spinal Centres before and I know the value of the patients having someone they can go to for support. What’s so exciting about being with Aspire is that as well as being able to provide them with the advice they need, I can also call on all the other Services Aspire has to offer – be that helping patients apply for equipment through the Human Needs Fund, utilising the Aspire Houses in South Wales or linking patients up with the Aspire volunteers so they can learn to use computers again. There’s so much going on and I’m looking forward to being a part of that, making sure that patients are ready to get on with their lives when they leave hospital.”