Married to Jennifer and father of two children Georgia & Noah, and as a family, we enjoy travelling, going to the theatre and cinema, as well as live music and scouting events. I first became interested passionately in health service provision when our son was diagnosed with Autism in 2009. The following year, I myself was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease the following year and quickly became involved in the sphere of rare disease as well. Living as a family with disabilities also fuelled my passion for social enterprise and I formed the first disability reviewing website in the UK – tripability.net. This allows disabled people to add access reviews of places they have been to or hotels they have stayed in and more importantly offered employment to disabled people here in Northern Ireland. Being interested in policy, I became a patient member of the Royal College of GP’s and was quickly asked to join policy groups at the Department of Health and currently chair a group working with patients in the co-production of Multi-Disciplinary Teams for primary healthcare. In 2017, I was awarded an MBE for services to the disabled community in Northern Ireland and appointed chairman of the Centre for Independent Living Northern Ireland. Most recently I have launched AccessoLoo, which is a mobile high dependency restroom (changing places) facility for outdoor events, which will offer inclusion, with dignity for those people with disabilities that require a toilet at outdoor festivals.
