This is as complete a list as I can currently compile (there are some places that have removed details of everything they sell from their websites whilst they’re closed for COVID-19 reasons). Expect this list to expand in due course and for the post to be edited. Please do draw any broken links to my attention.
Although I’d been aware of a number of these before drafting this post, the act of drafting leads me to conclude that disability or illness specific alerting cards or items are generally made for disabilities / illnesses / conditions
- that can affect how people behave in public
- that can cause loss of consciousness
- that can affect how people communicate
- that affect how people should be cared for by medics in emergency situations
- that are really rare, so a prompt is needed for unfamiliar medics.
Deliberately omitted from this post, which is already quite long are alerting cards / other documents for particular medications or that operate in particular areas of the country – this is a condition specific list.
Headway provide a card for people with Acquired Brain Injury
A charity is working on ID cards for ataxia
Auditory Processing Disorder (at the end of the document)
There are lots of Autism Alert Cards:
The National Autistic Society’s downloadable one
ARGH card designed by autistic people for autistic people
Autism Anglia (covers Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire Essex, Hertfordshire, Suffolk and Norfolk)
Autism Berkshire (covers Bracknell, Reading, Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, Slough, West Berkshire, Wokingham)
Autism Wessex (covers Bournemouth, Dorset and Poole)
Autism West Midlands (covers the British Transport Police nationally as well as Staffordshire, Warwickshire, the West Midlands (eg. Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton), the West Mercia Constabulary (think Herefordshire and Worcestershire, Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin)
Howgate shopping centre, Falkirk, Scotland
London (also used by the British Transport Police)
The Marlands shopping centre, Southampton
Pentagon shopping centre, Chatham, Kent
Mobility canes for blind people – they also sell red and white canes for deafblind people. (there’s a relatively straight forward process for blind people to register their sight loss in the LA registers, which perhaps diminishes their need for any separate card or other small identifying object).
Deaf children / Wiltshire and Dorset Deaf Association – for BSL users / Wiltshire and Dorset Deaf Association – for non-BSL users / Hearing Aid battery books / badges for deaf people and wristbands and related items for deaf people
Developmental Language Disorder
Diabetes Wristbands / Diabetes ID cards for insulin users only / Diabetes necklaces / more diabetes wristbands and other ID / Insulin passports
Given how hard it is to find any dyslexia specific alert cards, I suspect they aren’t considered to be useful by many dyslexics. There was, some ten years ago, a Bromley specific scheme providing a card called Helping Everyone with Literacy Problems to help people ask non-verbally for help with reading and completing forms. It is unclear to me why this scheme no longer exists; public spending cuts or it being a non-disabled person’s solution to something that wasn’t needed.
Epilepsy Action / Epilepsy Society
Heart Conditions/ Heart Failure / Cardiomyopathy
Fistula wristbands/ Emergency treatment keyrings for people with fistulas for dialysis/ more emergency keyrings
Advanced liver disease / hepatic encephalopathy passport
Primary sclerosing cholangitis
Mental Health – key ring based set of cards for anxiety
Crisis cards: a generic crisis card. Central and North West London, an easy read version by Central and North West London, Dudley and Walsall, NHS Fife, Wales
Phaeochromocytoma / Paraganglioma
Prospopagnosia (face blindness)
Stroke cards/ “communication licences” for people who’ve had strokes