Hereford Access Centre
Open Monday to Friday 09:00 - 17:00

Hereford Access Centre

Welcome to Hereford Access Centre, part of The Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford. This fully accessible venue offers excellent assessment facilities for the Disabled Students' Allowance.

Our centre is open to all UK residents planning Higher Education and requiring a Disabled Student's Allowance (DSA) assessment. Our highly qualified and experienced team can support you throughout the process and advise how best to access your chosen course.

Hereford Access Centre offers an appointment within 10 working days of the first contact.

We provide assessments for all disabilities including:

specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia, dyspraxia or ADD/ADHD
Asperger's syndrome and other spectrum conditions
visual impairment
hearing impairment
mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia
long standing illnesses or health conditions such as epilepsy, cancer, HIV, diabetes, heart disease
physical impairment or mobility issues and multiple disabilities

Why choose Hereford Access Centre?

Accredited by the DSA Quality Assurance Group, the national body that monitors and audits assessment centres to ensure high standards.
A proactive approach, keeping up-to-date with the latest assistive technologies and sharing best practice within the sector.
Consistently awarded high scores at the annual audit.

In addition, we offer private Diagnostic / Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD) assessments. Clients include school aged children, college and university students and employees following a recommendation from their employees.

Our Compliments and Complaints Policy explains how to comment on our services.

Please contact us (details at the bottom of the page) for more information or to make an appointment.

Disabled Students' Allowance (DSA) Assessment

How does the assessment process work?

Obtain an eligibility letter from your funding body (Student Finance England, Student Finance Wales, NHS Student Bursaries).
Contact us at the Hereford Access Centre on 01432 376635 or email access@rnc.ac.uk
We will arrange an appointment with an assessor within 15 working days and, where possible, within 10 working days.
When you receive your appointment, send us your eligibility letter and evidence of your disability. This must be done before attending your appointment.
Your assessment will take about two hours.
The assessor will work with you to identify barriers to your education, training and potential employment and explore a range of support strategies, equipment and assistive technology.

At the end of your assessment the assessor will summarise the support they will recommend in their report.
Within ten working days of your assessment we will send your study needs report to your funding body. You can opt to see your report as either a draft copy before it is sent to the funding body or the final version.

Your funding body will pay the fully inclusive assessment fee which covers all work required for the duration of your course of study. We will liaise with funding bodies, equipment and tutoring suppliers and your university or college in order to ensure your support needs are addressed fully, throughout your course.

More information

a male student working on a Perkins Brailler a female Braille teacher sits in front of him

For more information click the links below to other useful websites:

Opening hours: Monday to Friday 09:00 - 17:00

Hereford Access Centre
The Royal National College for the Blind
Venns Lane
Hereford
HR1 1DT

Tel: 01432 376635

Email: access@rnc.ac.uk

Contact us 01432 265 725 (Main reception)
01432 376 621 (Student enquiries)

Email: info@rnc.ac.uk

Press and media enquiries to:
mediaenquiries@rnc.ac.uk

Visit us at The Royal National College for the Blind (RNC), Venns Lane, Hereford HR1 1DT

Company Limited by Guarantee No. 2367626
Registered Charity No. 1000388

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