AAT GB offers green alternative to major social care adaptations in Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire County Council’s Adult Social Care & Health department is allocating stairclimbing wheelchairs from AAT GB that it hopes will offer a green-friendly alternative to having to build major home adaptations.
The route has been to utilise AAT’s Sella stairclimbers (stairclimbing wheelchairs), to be allocated, where appropriate, to clients needing help with stairs.
Using grant funding from the Council’s Green Investment Fund, four Sella’s have been purchased with the aim of providing an alternative to major adaptations that reduces the carbon impact of building.
Unlike conventional stair solutions- stairlifts, through-floor lifts which require structural surveys, installation and building works- the stairclimbers are mobile, portable devices. No building work is required.
As an added benefit, when the original recipient no longer requires the stairclimber, the Class 1 Medical Device can be re-issued/recycled to another person, with no building works to ‘make good’, further enhancing the green credentials- and best value capital outlay- of the equipment.
Further extending the capability of the stairclimbers, the Department has bought three of AAT’s unique Universal Seating System: developed specifically for the Sella, the Seating System combines back, seat, lateral and foot supports with safety harness thus ensuring each user is completely supported and safe when being transferred up and down stairs.
Sarah Hole, Children’s Senior Practitioner Occupational Therapist for the Integrated Community Equipment Loan Service Clinical Team Nottinghamshire and Nottingham City Partnership, commented: “We historically have purchased AAT stairclimbers for use, where appropriate, with children and adults who have impaired mobility.
“The fact that they can be deployed quickly, with none of the impact of building work, makes them a useful alternative to major adaptations, especially with budgets under pressure and the public sector drive to become carbon net zero.”
Dr Cate Bennett, Principal Occupational Therapist, Adult Social Care and Health at Nottinghamshire County Council, added: “The Principal Occupational Therapy role focuses on leading the quality assurance of occupational therapy practice, service development and improvement.
“It has a strategic and operational focus, and covers work within our organisation, and externally where it furthers the development of social care and occupational therapy.”
Mobility is the biggest disability in the UK, according to Statista, with stairs being the second most common hazard in the home and one of the three most common adaptations.
AAT GB claims that its stairclimber’s re-issue capability is unique in the inter-floor transfer sector, offering a cost-effective and quick way for local authorities to keep people safe and in their own homes by managing the risk of stairs.
