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Chair-iffic donations from the Friends of West Suffolk
Patients accessing services from the West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust are feeling the benefit of a series of grants generously given by the Friends of West Suffolk Hospital charity. Totalling nearly £90,000, the grants given last year have been raised through donations, legacies, volunteers and income via the hospital Friends’ shop located near the main entrance of the West Suffolk Hospital.
Three WSFT departments have obtained funds to support a variety of chairs that assist people receiving care.
The moving and handling team now has seven new state-of-the-art Raizer 2 Lifting Chairs. These are assembled around a patient who has fallen on the floor, lifting them safely back up to a sitting or standing position using a motor.
Taking only one minute to assemble around a patient, the chairs help to preserve patients’ dignity, getting them back up on their feet as soon as possible.
Neil Herbert, head of moving and handling at the Trust, said: “The grant has allowed us to buy these new chairs that are far easier for colleagues to use. They reduce the risk of injury to colleagues and can be put together and operated by one person, making it way more efficient than other methods.
“As well as being safer for our colleagues, the chairs are more dignified and safer for our fall patients. They work on lots of different types of flooring, including outside, and get our patients back to a sitting or standing position quickly and without drawing attention.
“We want to say thank you to the Friends of West Suffolk Hospital for their incredibly generous donation – the chairs are already making a huge impact on patient and staff safety.”
The Raizer chairs are not the only chairs that are getting positive feedback from patients. In the neonatal unit, the team received funding for three new recliner chairs, which are placed next to the cribs for parents to use while visiting their babies.
As well as reclining, the chairs are riser chairs, which helps parents to get up more easily. This is particularly helpful when holding babies, and the riser option can be incredibly helpful for mums while their bodies are recovering from the birth.
Vicky Nobbs, paediatric physiotherapist, explained that the old chairs were much less comfortable, and parents found it hard to get up from them, especially while holding their babies.
She explained: “We want mums to be here for prolonged periods of time for skin-to-skin contact, so that the babies on the neonatal unit get the best possible start in life.
“If parents can’t rest comfortably, they can’t feel comfortable giving the babies the nurturing that they need. Being next to parents is shown to help brain development for babies, so we want to make sure that parents are as comfortable as possible.
“We are so grateful for the new chairs, and the positive impact they are having on our parents.”
Upgrading chairs is something that the wheelchair services team at the Trust knows a lot about – and they also received funding from the Friends of WSH. The team were given a grant for equipment in their two new rooms, a workshop next to a clinic room.
The wheelchair services team assess people for wheelchairs and postural seating. Based at Chantry Clinic in Ipswich and at the Disability Resource Centre in Bury St. Edmunds, they prepare wheelchairs prior to handover, fitting parts and making adjustments, working with a range of wheelchairs and complex seating options for people with a long-term disability. Those introduced to the team are often surprised at how diverse the workload is.
Helping to equip the new dedicated workshop for the rehabilitation engineering team and therapists, the grant has contributed to a safer working environment and greater efficiency. Patients who use wheelchair services are undoubtedly feeling the benefit of the grant, with the new workshop next door to the clinic room helping to make the process of getting their wheelchair adjusted more efficient.
Sarah Steele, treasurer of the Friends of West Suffolk Hospital, said: that “The Friends of West Suffolk Hospital exist in order to support patients and staff of the hospital, mainly with equipment that the hospital cannot currently fund.
“It is all the more rewarding to the Trustees and our hardworking volunteers to receive feedback on the benefits patients are experiencing from these items. We hope this article will also reach the members of the public who have given so generously to the charity.”
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