Access to Hydrotherapy pools - Page 2 — Scope | Disability forum
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Access to Hydrotherapy pools

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Comments

  • veriterc
    veriterc Community member Posts: 241 Pioneering
    Thanks - I'll let the Polio Fellowship know as they are compiling a list.  You would think the NHS should do this - but....! 
  • newborn
    newborn Community member Posts: 832 Pioneering
    I would think a united umbrella organisation of large and small charities and interested parties could and should be working T O G E T H E R, to scream and scream for common interests.   One lobbying charity is a nuisance, and risks having funds cut and access to power cut off.     One hundred charities, united,  cannot be ignored.

    One hundred minor pro rata membership fees would allow an umbrella group to hire a staff to investigate, research, expose shortcomings  such as the lack of exercise provision.  Or lack of disabled suited housing. Or lack of respite for family carers. Or lack of access to trains and underground.

    One hundred organisations,  together,   would make a serious and immediate difference, when they make a move.   They would be taken seriously by the press, by those in power, by opinion formers.    Instead of dissipating effort and splintering the multiple funding streams within their memberships, they could be effective.

    I'm reminded of someone sadly remarking on a new charity for blind people. The organiser was proud that he had used a large fund to make tapes so blind people can have books read out for them.   He was proud that he had personally completed the first one.   

    That was duplicating, less well, the scheme   an existing large blind charity has already been running for decades. Professional actors do the readings.  BBC has an archive too.   So do libraries. Technology has now produced machines to translate the written word to sound, so people can listen to their private letters, or gas bills.     If only the same money and effort had gone into letting people know the details of the latest gadgets, it would have been some use.


  • newborn
    newborn Community member Posts: 832 Pioneering
    As a major priority, it makes sense for every disability, age, and carers charity to unite in demanding enforcement of equalities law equally, for all Equalities,  with first efforts concentrating on redressing the imbalance of attention and funding to fight  disability/age discrimination, because it is, as the  previous Equalities Chair remarked, "invisible, pervasive, normalised, socially accepted, universally practiced, and institutionalised " 
  • veriterc
    veriterc Community member Posts: 241 Pioneering
    This is a very good idea, but some of the major charities are more intent on building 'brand awareness' than in joining up with potential rivals for funds.  Hence small charities starting up, because they see how their funds they have raised can be used for 'expenses'.
    Having said that, I would be keen if Scope got together with - say - Arthritis, Polio, Osteoporosis etc. and went to the Dept. Health to demand better access to hydrotherapy, and got them to publish a list of hospital pools.
  • Cissoboy_25
    Cissoboy_25 Community member Posts: 2 Listener
    Years ago I used a hydrotherapy pool as part of my physio I was sent to one  a few miles away I was warmed up by hot pads first and wrapped in huge towels then taken into the pool it was soo good but coming out side after I had to wrap up as first few times I ended up with a chest infection but yes  I think they help excersise without hurting you and warm too very relaxing.
    We need more of these not closing them down  
  • Pippa_Alumni
    Pippa_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 5,793 Disability Gamechanger
    Welcome to the community @Cissoboy_25, and thanks for sharing your experiences!
  • purpletoast
    purpletoast Community member Posts: 10 Connected
    Access to Hydrotherapy is being cut unless you can demonstrate clinical need/improvement. This doesn’t take account of maintaining the bodies condition, pain relief or mental health benefits. Yet pools are under used and many patients would be willing to pay a small fee for access because of the benefits it provides. 
  • Paddyrooney62
    Paddyrooney62 Community member Posts: 17 Connected
    I really enjoy reading the posts from the community. I would love to use Hydro-Pool and will check my local area to see if I can use this Service. This is the first time I have posted as I’m a bit shy ☺️ but getting there...
  • veriterc
    veriterc Community member Posts: 241 Pioneering
    Welcome to the Community,and good luck with finding a pool.  If you do, could you go to www.aftercancers.com and leave the address on one of the hydrotherapy pages please. I am trying to help the British Polio Fellowship compile a list,as the NHS doesn't know what ones it has!
  • Cissoboy_25
    Cissoboy_25 Community member Posts: 2 Listener
    I live in Rugby in Warwickshire they did have one in Leamington at the old pump baths on the main High Street I don't know if its still going I was sent there years ago for hydrotherapy if that's any help to ppl in my area 
  • Pippa_Alumni
    Pippa_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 5,793 Disability Gamechanger
    Welcome to the community, @purpletoast and @Paddyrooney62! Great to have both of you here!
  • newborn
    newborn Community member Posts: 832 Pioneering
    edited October 2018
    Hi veriterc, great you are helping the polio people. As you are in touch with them, could you please ask why they only want to limit their list to nhs pools?   What do they have against council owned school pools?  Or, best of all, private pools?

    The paying customer is king.   The nhs patient is a beggar not a chooser. If more people  knew about the benefits of exercise in bath hot water, more would ask for it at leisure centres.   Not just a splash pool for babies, not just a spa bath, a pool for swimming and walking, which could have different depths, but need not be deep at any point.   Heating to a higher temperature (and needing ultraviolet cleaning, not mere chlorine) is offset by having a smaller body of water.  Supply would follow demand.   

    I think in  Hove(?) a woman (retired physio??)turned her small garden swim pool (Henry House??) into a hydropool,  making news by  training herself as a pool engineer into the bargain!

    Benidorm has a large demand from older people, so some hotels have hydropool,  and a local school earns money by letting the public use its hydropool, out of hours.    In u.k., some blocks of flats have hot basement pools.  Nearly all junior and senior council special schools do. 

    But, uk schools don't need money?????Or, u.k. schools think special needs pupils never  need another moment of exercise, from the day they leave school?????Or, u.k. health and education must never communicate?????Or, uk nhs is awash with cash to provide lifelong daily hydrotherapy exercise to the entire population who might benefit????? 

     ( Or, whisper it, uk public services are staffed by and ruled by people who will get their gold plated pensions, regardless of needing to give a moment of thought to the best interests of the public they 'serve'?)

      Most leisure centres have the spa and baby pools.  Nobody reserves times for disabled sessions., Southwark is one of too few which have hoists or pool chairs. 

     Some reason "it's a walk in beach style access"  But they still need either a rail from a dry area right into the pool, or better, a plastic wheeled chair staff are trained to use to assist people with poor mobility, because you can't use zimmer frames and crutches on wet tiles.

    This is a repeat of the blinkered stale thinking which refused women-only exercise centres.  So an entire chain of private gyms now thrives on the demand the others ignore.
  • Waylay
    Waylay Community member, Scope Member Posts: 973 Pioneering
    I did a residential pain management programme at the hospital (I have mobility probs and lived at the opposite end of the city). The hydrotherapy pool was AMAZING. I applied to get on the list to use it, and when I had to move suddenly a couple of months later, I moved much closer to the hospital so that I'd be able to get to the hydro pool.

    The hydro pool closed 2 months later.
  • veriterc
    veriterc Community member Posts: 241 Pioneering
    The list isn't limited to NHS ones,but as many can't afford private charges, it will principally concentrate on the NHS.  However, one of best facilities I have tried was an Aqua Treadmill at the Circle in Reading, and this costs £55 a session.  
    The problem with using Gyms and Leisure Centres is pool temp. is often too low (29 degrees) for disabled people - it should be around 34 degrees.
  • DrShah
    DrShah Community member Posts: 15 Courageous
    Yep hydro is absolutely beneficial. We used to have a hydro pool as our special school in Nottingham and went in three times a week  with the physio. That pool was absolutely amazing and maintained very well. The school closed about ten years ago and I have no idea what happened to the pool. Any sensible person or community would have run a service for people of Nottingham and the East Midlands. It would have been perfect. Apparently the two large hospitals had one but they closed them. surely it's a more cost-effective way of maintaining health and well-being. 
  • veriterc
    veriterc Community member Posts: 241 Pioneering
    Every hospital or cancer centre I visited in Europe when having cancer treatment had at least one hydro pool - some had several.
    Europe has far better recovery and survival rate after cancer- Britain is ranked 25th out of 27 nations for post-cancer survival by the World Health Authority.
    When will someone in the NHS start to think of beneits of treatment like hydrotherapy? 
  • AJ98
    AJ98 Community member Posts: 5 Connected
    There are more hydro pools for dogs and horses than there are for people.  I find the hydro pool helps me to be out of pain for a short time whilst in the pool but once i get out the pain is back.

    I havent had hydro for years as there arent any groups in my area.
  • newborn
    newborn Community member Posts: 832 Pioneering
    The greedy versus the needy.

     No limit for tax funding of Olympic athletes. No tax funding at all for exercise facilities specially tailored for disabled people.   

    Re-hab centres should exclude fit athletes. If pools are warm enough for disability exercise, they are too cold for athletes. If gyms are suited to athletes,  they are not suited for extremely disabled people .

    Remember the Equality Duty, then ask.
    ..... Public policy should ensure A) Fit people get leaflets exhorting them to go for a daily walk? Or,  B) Elite athletes should take public funds to advance their careers? 

    Or,....... C) Seriously injured or disabled people should have priority of all planning and funding?

    The muddle in the middle can go running or walking, or pay for their own alternative from dancing to rock climbing.   

    The greatest result in value for time, provision, money invested comes from the most extremely  disabled.  An athlete needs an extra year of intense training and coaching, merely to get a fraction faster. 

    But, a profoundly disabled/injured person can have his life transformed,  and a degree of independence and autonomy, or return to work like Prof. S. Hawkins, just by having special passive/active exercise machines and concentrated physio, to restore a small control of movement in one finger, to operate his own wheelchair or voice simulator.
  • veriterc
    veriterc Community member Posts: 241 Pioneering
    I so agree - yet when we plead with hospitals to give us therapies that we know will make us mobile, they don't want to know.

  • DoriFish
    DoriFish Community member Posts: 45 Courageous
    I have asked & all I got back join a gym or your local pool
    For one the water is usually to cold the & two battling able bodied swimmers, other is costs!
    They would prefer to dish out more pills than help in a more positive way..
    What can you say?

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