Mobility UK
Halfords Walking Aids
Jul 19th
What happens if you are not exactly mobility impaired but cannot walk properly without assistance? Or perhaps your grandfather’s arthritis has gradually robbing him of the ability to walk without assistance or a family member is recovering from a road accident. Whatever the cause, there are thousands of people who don’t need a wheelchair yet who also need help and a little support.
At Mobility Compare, we’ve been a big fan of the Strongarm range of walking aids. Based in the US these walking aids are cleverly designed and provide the user with great support. You can read our post about them here. We’re hoping they get a UK distribution deal soon because, as far as we know, you can only buy them from the States.
Another great range of walking aids can be bought, interestingly enough, from Halfords. Little known to most people, Halfords is a key player in the mobility industry and tucked away behind the sat navs, car stereos, mountain bikes etc is a really good range of walking aids.
Our favourite? The four wheel walker with seat. For £99, the excellent craftsmanship of the walker really impressed us. As you’d expect from a motor industry specialist, the walker comes with – wait for it – anti-skid tyres and quick action loop brakes. But what we like most about the walker is that it comes with a padded seat – now that’s CLEVER. It simply means that if someone gets tired, they can just lock the brakes and take a breather. Hugely simple but massively clever – why? For many people who are only slightly mobility impaired, taking rests is an essential part of their walking routine. Downside? The maximum weight limit is 18 stone so it’s borderline for obese people.
Another Halford’s mobility aid we’re rather taken with is the Adjustable Folding Seat Cane. Once again, what we like about this little gem is that it comes with a seat. Whilst the cane does exactly what its name suggests, it folds out into a sturdy stool on which you can rest for a while before continuing your walk. The leather bound seat is comfortable and the anti-slip rubber feet ensure total safety. Again, it’s a clever little mobility aid. Maximum weight? 18 stone which is more than enough.
It’s good to see a big high street retailer like Halfords participate in the mobility market. Not only does it make mobility aids more accessible (it has well over 400 stores nationwide), its products come with a very competitive price tag. A fully paid-up member of the British Healthcare Trades Association, Halfords is also a British based company (Worcester now you ask). Let’s hope it expands its range further over the coming years.
For more information on mobility aids, don’t forget to visit Mobility Compare by clicking here.
Who should the mobility impaired vote for?
Apr 21st
A little while back we wrote a piece about what we thought of the forthcoming election. Mobility Compare’s view? Whichever Government comes into power will be skewered by record levels of debt – 150% of GDP to be exact – alongside an aging population that is becoming more demanding in their health expectations.
The Catch 22, of course, is that an aging population also means more disabled people, implying more benefits and NHS health costs.
Currently the UK spends £1.6 billion on mobility aids alone. This is up by over 15% since 2004 and is set to spiral upwards over the next few years.
The million dollar question is now whether the Government in waiting will now slash NHS and mobility spending or increase it further….
The two main parties, Labour and Conservative, have both come out on record and said they won’t cut the NHS and will, in fact, increase it further. Good in theory, but do we believe them?
Well, Mobility Compare would if we could. However, we’re too long in the tooth to take much notice of pre-election promises. Don’t you know that ‘circumstances change’? As Exhibit A we wheel out David Cameron who said he’d increase the number of single NHS beds by 45,000 only then to turn around on the Andrew Marr show and say, errr, “no we won’t”.
If you doubt the veracity of our politicians then like us you should check out The Truth & Honesty Party which is trying to make manifesto pledges legally binding. However, if you still need convincing that politicians can be economical with the truth, check out these two little gems:
The Naked Truth: Cameron (ebook)
The Naked Truth: Brown (ebook)
The bottom line is that for sufferers of disability and our nation’s elderly, we need to make our voices heard that we won’t tolerate any reduction in levels of NHS care. If politicians promise this, then we should hold them to account.
Whatever party you support, make sure they honour their commitments to you and, at the first sign of them failing, write to your MP immediately. Remember, a promise is a promise.
Let’s make our vote count.
It’s a Mini Marvel!
Mar 31st
From time to time the staff at Mobility Compare come across a product that puts a smile on our face….
The first one to pass our desks is from a company called Co-op Xest who sell the seated pedal exerciser. What’s that you might ask? Well, it’s like a bicycle without wheels – you just sit in your chair and pedal away to your heart’s content. Call it couch potato fitness as all the exerciser needs is a side pocket for the nachos and a microwave for the melted cheese.
It does have a serious point though – Deep Vein Thrombosis is a killer and is usually caused by people staying motionless in their seats for hours on end. That’s why airline passengers are particularly susceptible to DVT. So, for people who cannot leave their seats or are seriously disabled, we think this is rather a neat machine. Thumbs up!
Another product we like is the Mini Marvel from Aquability. The name sounds like something Cadbury’s would make as an Easter treat but it’s actually a tiny walk-in bath that fits into small, small spaces. For disabled people who have small bathrooms it’s a superb solution because it has all the options of a larger bath packed into one tiny space.
You can even get a 12 jet air spa option – just make sure you have the door shut when you turn on the jet, for obvious reasons.
So, those are our two products of the week. Please send us any further product news to Mobility Compare blog @ 4th Floor, River House, 143-145 Farringdon Road, London, EC1R 3AB.
Give the elderly disabled more choice and a better deal
Mar 17th
There’s a conundrum about the way we expect the elderly disabled to buy products in this country. We rely on them to haul themselves to a mobility shop – usually based off a busy three lane highway full of fast flowing traffic – and, assuming they manage to make it there, somehow expect them to know what products exist to help their disability.
Right…….
We also expect them to pay a lot of money for mobility aids and accessories that can be old fashioned as well as over-priced. And the tragedy is that there are products available in other countries that they might never see or hear about, some of which could address their needs better and at a much better price.
What’s sad is that the UK elderly have grown up in a country that has been internationally envied for invention and innovation. However, it is not easy for manufacturers to sustain creativity in mobility whilst in a country where the biggest customer is a nationalised health service.
In other countries, like the US, product design for the elderly is consumer-driven and, of course, the market is bigger. This provides more choice and a greater focus on style when it comes to designing products.
It is testament to this growing need that British supermarkets are starting to be attracted to the potential of the mobility market, but they can only give shelf space to products likely to sell in large quantities and which have been designed down to a price point. There has been little development in the products needed to support carers or the cared for.
See the problem? The people at Mobility Compare can see it clearly and so can I.
So maybe the future of shopping for disability aids for older customers and their carers could be more variety, better designed products, sourced worldwide, purchased from and delivered to your own home?
On this point I need to alert you to Homecare from The Consortium, a forward thinking Wiltshire-based company that has been serving care homes for nearly 40 years. It has designed an on-line store (www.homecare-products.co.uk) that is easy to navigate and use with hundreds of reasonably priced quality products – many of which are new to this country. All the products and accessories are grouped to help specific problems or disabilities.
Is it an idea that might catch on? Time will tell. Homecare has only just launched its service this spring. But we wish it every success in bringing smart, affordable and innovative mobility aids and accessories to the market. It deserves it.
Disability team succeeds in improving CityWest Homes
Mar 3rd
Whoahhh! Is this the most boring topic ever? Well, it would certainly be worth a nomination for this year’s most boring story of the year awards but it does have its merits.
Before you slink into a torpor and start fantasising about a warm holiday in the Maldives let me set the scene. CityWest Homes is a housing organisation that manages Westminster City Council’s 22,000 homes including all maintenance and estate management through their local estate offices.
Bear with me….make a coffee perhaps, sip a Red Bull, but bear with me…..
Now, normally, most disabled people have to wait months and even years for any Council to make special alterations to their homes. With potholes, leaking roofs, plumbing emergencies, boiler failures etc all taking priority, councils have often put disability improvements to the very bottom of the pile. Usually they’re just buried for good.
Yet for people who are disabled, especially the newly disabled like veterans from Iraq or elderly stroke victims, having to wait months and years for home improvements can make their suffering unbearable.
This is why I’m very impressed with the team at CityWest. What they’ve done is set a blueprint for all councils nationwide by seriously shortening the waiting time for mobility aids.
The building and property services team, which installs mobility equipment in homes with physically disabled residents, has managed to shorten the waiting times for urgent tasks by 50 percent (from thirteen weeks to just six). Now let me tell you that’s seriously quick. For people used to waiting 3, 4 or even 5 months, sometimes longer, the prospect of getting their mobility aid installed in just six weeks is OUTSTANDING.
In 2010 so far, the team, consisting of just 5 members, has more than tripled the total number of adaptations completed. A big round of applause to Rowena Ng and her staff because not only are her colleagues dramatically improving waiting times, they’ve also made it a point to listen to the recommendations made by tenants themselves.
The reaction of residents? The service provided by the team has been rated 5/5 by 70% of participants in a recent survey.
With the services provided by the team including installation of special equipment like mobility baths, along with adaptations like bath lifts, special stairlifts, hoists, and ramps for the patients, CityWest should get a medal.
Why can’t every council behave like this?
Mobility aids – a political hot potato?
Feb 25th
With both main parties scrabbling for votes prior to the 2010 elections, it’s no surprise that neither wants to show their hand. That’s a pity because for Britain’s 11 million disabled individuals the prospect of swingeing cuts in the NHS doesn’t fill any of us with confidence. After all, it could be equipment for the disabled that suffers the chop.
Will mobility budgets get axed?
Western democracy is a bit of a mockery because even if politicians don’t disclose to us what they intend to do prior to an election, they often renege on their promises once in power. As Exhibit A I hold up Barack Hussein Obama who is as believable with his ‘change you can believe in’ mantra as Tiger Woods was with his marriage vows. As Rupert Cornwall says in today’s Independent, ‘America is in a foul mood’, with Obama seen as an empty suit doing Wall Street’s bidding. BTW, did you know that the Wall Street bailout would have paid off all US mortgages in one swoop? No wonder the US is pissed….they could have been having one long party instead of the next great depression.
Here in the UK, if a political manifesto was seen as a legally binding document then it would change the face of politics as we know it. Perhaps even honesty might rear its ugly head?? Still, with my cynics hat on, Labour and the Tories would try to get round it with simplified one liners. You know the sort of tripe…..“we’ll assist disabled people”. Err, and what would ‘assist’ mean? 20p off a Costa Coffee when having a check-up?
Anyway, here’s the problem….. the market for equipment for disabled people in the UK is about £1.6bn, up from about £1.4bn in 2004. The issue for whoever is next in power is that this demand for mobility equipment is increasing above the pace of inflation.
This growth is expected to continue for the next 5 years because as the number of elderly individuals increases, the overall size of the disabled population is also growing larger. I haven’t made these figures up btw. They come from a report from the UK Office for Disability Issues, a Government department.
So how can the UK Government increase the money available for disabled equipment at a time when it wants to make big cuts in the NHS budget? It can’t.
This problem will only get worse because mobility aids are becoming more sophisticated by the day, even basic aids like bath lifts, adjustable beds and disabled toilets. As they become more useful, patients and medical professionals are looking out for the next innovation to hit the market.
This all costs money.
There is also a trend towards community care, and many more disabled people are living at home nowadays, both for emotional as well as financial reasons. This is increasing the need for individual equipment and specialist aids, like small hoists and stairlifts….this costs money too.
The solution? If we don’t want to go back to the Stone Age, we’re going to have to make sure that the next Government is upfront about its intentions for equipment for the disabled.
Let’s make a start by writing to Jonathan Shaw, Minister for Disabled People who can be reached at the Department for Work and Pensions, Caxton House, Tothill Street, London, SW1H 9DA.
On our own we’re powerless, but all eleven million of us? Think what could be achieved. All we’re asking is for honesty of intentions before the election. Then we can cast our vote with confidence.
Strongarm Cane of the Law
Feb 9th
I haven’t used a cane or crutch since I had a nasty sports accident a few years ago, but when I did they all seemed much of a muchness – cold, grey metallic pieces of steel with as much personality as an NHS car park clerk.
The designs were all basically the same too – straight pieces of metal, a rubber armpit rest and a clunky piece of plastic at the bottom. Not much good for anything except hobbling around on and giving the odd cheeky nipper on my estate a light clout when dropping litter. I say ‘light’ in case the Old Bill is reading.
A few people have tried to jazz them up. A quick web search brought up one or two students at The Global Art Initiative in Texas who gave their crutches a bit of life – fair do’s they’re not a bad effort.
That aside, cane and crutch design hasn’t really moved forward since Noah used one to ward off three chimpanzees – only two were allowed if you remember.
That’s why I was intrigued to find in my mobility compare inbox a missive from a company called Strongarm who claim to have invented the next generation of canes – or in their words ‘an ambulatory aid’. Why the name Strongarm? No idea but it’s probably a play on words between having a ‘strong arm’ and the firm grip a Chicago policeman gives when he apprehends you for wearing a t-shirt that says Obama? No we can’t.
With headquarters in Illinois, the Strongarm looks almost like a normal cane but provides the stability of a forearm crutch, without the tripping hazards associated with walkers and quad-canes. It’s a really neat idea tbh, because it transfers the load bearing from the user’s wrist to the forearm, creating a much more stable alternative to walkers and canes.
Here’s a small piccy:
Video: http://www.strongarmmobility.com/video4.php
From what I’ve read the Strongarm is of great benefit to amputees and post-op patients – and especially those who require greater balance, like someone recovering from a stroke or from Parkinson’s disease.
Their best product is the Forearm Cane. It’s an ambulatory aid that looks like a cane, but it provides significantly more stability, like a forearm crutch. With the StrongArm Forearm Cane, the tripping hazards associated with quad-canes and walkers are greatly reduced.
Given that the American Geriatrics Society Journal has found that 47,000 adults each year are treated in the US alone for serious cane and walker related injuries, the Strongarm looks to have a bright future. The only two problems I can see is that there are no UK distributors – if that changes I’ll let you know – and the fact that UK prices don’t seem to have been set. Hmm, with the pound dropping like a stone I’m not confident that it will be priced competitively. Let’s wait and see.
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