Roger helps small healthcare and disability charities nationwide with their development, all as a volunteer. In 1960 at Barnet Hospital he helped to develop the world’s first electronic life support ventilator, then on to the National Spinal Injuries Centre, Stoke Mandeville Hospital to develop the world’s first independent living technology, still supplied by the NHS with thousands of happy users and carers nationwide. Roger also helped to develop the first NHS chin controlled wheelchair and the first finger switch controlled road vehicle for a paralysed long term ventilator user.
That work launched the Possum Users Association (now Sequal Trust) in 1969 to fund special technology for severely disabled individuals, similarly Mobility Trust in 1972 to fund powered wheelchairs. In 1975 Roger founded the Aidis Trust to fund adapted computers, and in 1980 he helped to launch Demand to design and make tailored special needs equipment. In 1983 he founded the Disability Aid Fund, now the Roger and Jean Jefcoate Trust, supporting local, regional and small national healthcare charities for adults.
In 1990 Roger co-founded Canine Partners to train assistance dogs for disabled people. He also helped to establish the Neuromuscular Centre in Cheshire, another ground breaking project giving business training with care support for young people with muscular dystrophy. In 1992 Roger saved Pield Heath school in London, Britain’s oldest residential special school, and in 1994 he saved the Pace centre in Aylesbury, developing new ways of helping severely disabled children with their physical, educational and social development.
In 1997 Roger co-founded AbilityNet to give online advice on adapted computers to millions of disabled people worldwide. In 1999 he co-founded ME Research UK to find the cause of this very distressing condition, and in 2007 he co-founded Medical Detection Dogs to detect cancer and other conditions, another world first.
Roger is a patron or vice-patron of most of these charities; he is also patron of the Neuro Therapy Network and WheelPower in Stoke Mandeville, birthplace of the Paralympics. He was the first Buckinghamshire chairman of The Prince’s Trust from 1990 until 1997 (now the King’s Trust) and in 1998 he was appointed CBE for services to disability. In 2005 Roger was awarded an honorary doctorate by Buckinghamshire New University, similarly in 2023 by the University of Buckingham where he co-founded their dyslexia hub, the first in Britain. He is a Deputy Lord-Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire and a Liveryman of the Drapers’ Company in London.
