18 Feb 2026
Wheelchair user Niki Sykes had to contact her local MP after she was left stranded by battery failings…
For those who love me and know me well, it is no surprise and no secret that come the New Year (every year) I make a list of resolutions as long as both your arms, most of which I share publicly and some (often small, silly and intensely personal) that I do not.
It will also come as no secret or surprise that not unlike vast numbers of the population that by the second week of January, (being generous), that most of these will have gone out of the window. So far 2026 has been no different.
What is different this year however is that I made a promise to myself to re-establish who I am and get myself out of the metaphorical rut.
I am very much a (proud) solo mum of two incredible lads and that has very much been the core of my identity for the last two decades.
Last summer, my beloved fledglings decided to stretch their wings and leave the nest – in less than two weeks of each other – and this is still something I grapple with now however many months later.
As they find their way into the world and do great things, the challenge is now that I do the same, the plot twist here is that my wings come in the form of wheels. I cannot stand or walk independently, it has been that way since birth and I use a wheelchair to make up the difference. I have both a manual wheelchair and a powered wheelchair, the manual I use when out and about with friends and family as it folds into the boot of a car and makes transportation easier (I don’t drive) but I also struggle to self-propel and certainly could not do this over any meaningful distance and an electric/battery-powered wheelchair in pretty much every other aspect of my daily life – especially outside of the house… essentially, my wheels do for me what my legs cannot – this is important in every aspect of my personal liberty and my individual freedom and whereas (to me) my disability has never been a big deal, my wheelchair is a literal lifeline – and very much needed in terms of all things resolution.
New Year’s Eve I took myself to the pantomime at the Alban Arena and realised that the battery was not holding charge, chalking it up initially to an oversight on my behalf but getting from the foyer and into the taxi was…interesting, and would have probably been quicker had I crawled.
Once home I put the chair on charge and searched for the repair number needed in order to call someone out to get it fixed.
Now, this chair is an NHS issue that I have had for somewhere in the region of eight years. I have done my very best to look after and maintain it so I (luckily) have never had many problems with it and think I have only ever had to call people out to it once, maybe twice before. Since taking ownership, the NHS contract in question has changed hands from Millbrook to AJM Healthcare (based in Hertford).
Giving a couple of days leeway to account for New Year festivities I first made contact with AJM on Saturday 3rd January, a weekend day and funnelled through to the out of hours emergency personnel, who was understanding but does not carry batteries for call out, he took details and promised to pass my details over to the team on the Monday and someone would get back to me. Spoiler alert, they didn’t.
Roll on the following Thursday, I am back at work (thankfully, I work from home otherwise I can foresee that being a whole other unnecessary can of worms that did not need to be opened) and I still have heard nothing so I ring them on my lunch hour. They are very sorry, they are waiting on a bulk load order of batteries, given my situation and circumstance they put me down as a priority and will call me when said order arrives.
Come Monday I ring again, no news of battery order and no estimated delivery date, so I ask if they have a courtesy scheme available (as with cars), they do not and imply that they think I must be joking. I am not.
They suggest asking around local mobility/disability charities to see if I can loan a manual chair or a mobility scooter (which would not work for my needs on account of the size and the fact that I have little innate balance and the seating is generally not catered to suit this). Naturally I was unable to find a suitable alternative.
Equally, I have to say, I am not a fan of being housebound on top of which I missed various activities that I had been looking forward to, including an exhibition and a history talk at St Albans Museum and a book/authors talk at the Cathedral – as I said, resolutions. In fact, it got to the point where I was using my lunch hour almost daily to call for updates (they never once rang me) to the point where the rotating customer services team pretty much all knew me by name.
It made no difference though, I was given a myriad excuses and sympathetic noises were given but no concrete answers, no dates and no batteries. So on Sunday 1st February I contacted our MP Daisy Cooper, not sure it would make a difference but very aware her voice carries more weight than mine and her ability to bang on tables is more refined.
I was still calling on an almost daily basis and still getting nowhere fast, but then on Wednesday last week I received an email from Daisy’s office asking my permission to action and speak to people on my behalf.
After I grant this, on Thursday I get two emails in quick succession to say that the wheels are turning followed by a call from AJM to schedule an engineer for the next day (!) to fit batteries as they did indeed have some in stock (!) – Go figure…
They have since been fitted, 36 days after reporting and 39 after the fact.
I am actually not convinced that they are the correct batteries for my chair as they are smaller than the two that were removed and the engineers have padded out the extra space with the cardboard packaging that they provided, but so far, they appear to have charged correctly (after eight hours) and I finally feel as if I have got my freedom and my life back.
Next on the plan of action is that I now need to spend some time and recalibrate, researching (mostly local, always accessible) events that interest me and ways to get out and about so that I can meet people and interact with the world once again, so far I have none other than line-dancing booked in for the 18th February – because, why not, I can’t dance but that has never stopped me – I already have my Stetson at the ready and need to find the rhinestones to go with it, but there will be more excitement and wheelspun adventures to follow I am sure…
Words cannot adequately express my gratitude, 39 days without batteries and 36 to get a response (and having to enlist our MP to do so) is neither fun nor acceptable and had it not been for the office of Daisy Cooper I am pretty sure I would still be waiting.
