An ongoing oral history project at the University of Cumbria seeks to uncover the lived experiences of people with learning difficulties who lived at the Royal Albert Hospital. A recently made video exposed the apparent distress this caused one of the participants. Ethical discussions about the project reached a point of being "stuck".…

Hospital porters often feel so little valued in their jobs that they are uninterested even in training that could get them out of their rut. In an attempt to change what he considered an underlying negative perception regarding portering, in 1999, the author founded the Porters 2000 forum. As the chair, and with the support of members, he wrote to…