NHS Trusts are being given the opportunity to improve their provision for patients- without it costing a penny.

The Government has allocated £2million to NHS Trusts specifically to provide Changing Places assisted accessible toilet, so disabled visitors to the hospital can deal with their intimate hygiene appropriately.

Explains Claire Haymes, Closomat away from home C(DM) co-ordinator,“The whole point of a Changing Places toilet is to enable someone who needs help to go to the toilet to do so with the appropriate space and equipment. We project manage such installations day in, day out. We understand all the considerations, not just in terms of Building Regulations, but useability: knowledge we share with clients to ensure their Changing Places delivers in every way. Inability to use the facility is almost worse than non provision.”

Closomat, Britain’s leading provider of away from home assisted accessible WC facilities, has launched a package to help NHS Trusts deliver on a successful grant application. Under the offering it will, in-house, provide a complete, “wrap around” service- design advice, supply, installation- including to optimum ‘best practice’ guidelines, commissioning, and subsequent service & maintenance.

Uniquely, Closomat is the only major Changing Places provider that is fully Construction (Design & Management) compliant, and that has the capability to offer such breadth and depth of expertise and support from one source.

Claire adds, “Disabled people represent 33% of NHS users(1). Whilst many can use a conventional wheelchair accessible toilet, a large proportion cannot- they need extra space and/or equipment. The alternative is stark: they have to stay sat in a soiled pad or nappy, be changed on the floor, hold the movement, or go home.

“Yet to date only about 20% of the UK’s 1250 or so hospitals have a Changing Places. Only £0.5m of the £2m available has been allocated. Our experience shows the average cost of the equipment fora Changing Places, to best practice and supplied and installed, costs around £15,000. So there is scope for scores more NHS Trusts to improve the accessibility of their hospitals.”

Details of the Government monies for Changing Places in hospitals, including the funding scope and application form, can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/changing-places-toilets-in-nhs-hospitals-apply-for-funding.
Closomat has been involved with the Changing Places campaign almost from the outset, and was the original campaign sponsor. It has supplied and installed hundreds of Changing Places over the past decade, as both new build and refurbishments.

Full details here:

https://www.closomat.co.uk/changing-places/changing-places.html

(1) Papworth Trust: Disability Facts & Figures in the UK