Pimp My Ride 2024

Setting the Scene

The health service’s finance chief has said, “There is a predicted £7 billion budget shortfall in NHS budgets for 2023.” On top of this when Jeremy Hunt chaired the Commons health and social care select committee, he noted £7 billion a year extra for just adult social care services was only a “starting point” that would not increase care quality.

The King Fund stated that, “A lack of capital investment has seen the NHS develop a maintenance backlog of £9.2 billion, which includes high risk and urgent repairs.”

Although walking aids are relatively low-cost items, ranging from £2.50 – £3.00 per unit for walking sticks, and £20 – £40 for walking frames. Total expenditure in 2017/18 on walking aids by Health Boards via the NHS Scotland framework was approximately £690,000 with a further £62,000 procured for Joint Equipment Stores.

Reusing a refurbished walking aid is on average 98% lower in carbon emissions than using a new walking aid. So why don’t the NHS, Social Care providers and individuals used pre-loved walking aids?

In October 2020, the NHS became the world’s first health service to commit to reaching carbon net zero, in response to the profound and growing threat to health posed by climate change. With around 4% of the country’s carbon emissions, and over 7% of the economy, the NHS has an essential role to play in meeting the net zero targets set under the Climate Change Act (Delivering a ‘Net Zero’ National Health Service). Increasing the return rate over the next three years could reduce health and social care carbon emissions by 7,400 tonnes of carbon emissions, equivalent to 281,397 car trips from London to Bristol.

From an investigation carried out by the Press Association, 2019 statistics showed that the NHS spends more than £14 million every year replacing unreturned, broken or lost crutches.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, data disclosed found that just under 80 percent of mobility aids – such as walking sticks, wheelchairs and crutches – were never returned to health and social care providers by patients.

This might be as there are different returns policies within the hospitals and care providers, with some requesting people to return their walking aids, while others say the cost of cleaning and maintaining the mobility aids meant there was no value in reusing them.

Rachel Power, Chief Executive of the Patients Association charity, said: “People are often bewildered that the NHS and social care providers do not ask for equipment back when they have finished using it, and sometimes even find that they can make it bafflingly hard when they try to return it.”

It’s clear that the health and social care system needs to find innovative ways to save money to address the budgetary shortfalls, as well as reduce their carbon emissions and waste.

Something dramatically needs to change.

NHS England have committed to delivering £12bn of annualised savings by 2024/25, one of the ways they can achieve this is by reusing their own equipment.

If just two out of every five walking aids were returned, the average hospital could save up to £46k per year. 

The sector needs to be embracing the 5 R’s

1)    Reuse

2)    Repair

3)    Refuse

4)    Reduce

5)    Recycle

The whole of the sector needs to be challenging the manufacturing, production and sourcing of these walking aids and challenging their own internal processes.

The Grace Care’s Pimp My Ride Brief

The mission is to reimagine a walking frame. This is to highlight the many uses a walking frame could have. The sky is the limit. Each entrant was supplied with the walking frame from Grace Cares.

What we advised they considered:

•         Think about the reusability of your walking frame? Could you find an innovative way of stacking or storing it?
•         As well as storage, what other problems are there with walking frames that you could make better?
•         Think about the sustainability of anything you may be adding to the walking frame.
•         Think about the sustainability of any manufacturing processes you will be using.

Please see above an example of how Maggie Candy (a registered nurse) pimped up a walking frame into a BBQ. You’ll also see our male model Chapie modelling the frames pre-pimping. 😁

Please get in touch to find out more.