Royal teams up with Shopmobility

Thursday 11 October 2007

An innovative new service aimed at assisting patients and visitors with limited mobility is now available at The Royal Hospitals.

The Shopmobility Scheme at the Royal is the first of its kind in Northern Ireland and offers patients and visitors the opportunity to hire out scooters and wheelchairs to help them get to their destination throughout the Royal Hospitals.

The service is free and is available from 8.30am to 5.00pm Monday to Friday. The Shopmobility unit is located on the ground floor of the visitors’ car park beside the School Of Dentistry. The Unit is close to lifts which offer access to various sites throughout the Royal Hospitals.

A wide range of mechanised and self-propelled models of scooters and wheelchairs are housed at the unit where volunteer Shopmobility staff are on hand to meet and greet patients and visitors who require the service. While staff will endeavour to accommodate anyone with limited mobility that requires the service, it is recommended that advance notice is given by phoning the Shopmobility unit on 028 9031 0923 to book a vehicle and inform staff to the time they will arrive and which service they require.

Clients will initially be asked for either their appointment letter or photographic ID to become a Shopmobility member. They will then be issued with a membership card which enables them to use all of Shopmobility services throughout Belfast.

"We hope the scheme will help patients and visitors with mobility limitations get around the site and make accessing services easier" said Veronica McEneaney, Health and Social Inequalities manager at Royal. "If the pilot scheme proves successful we would hope to make it permanent and possibly extend it across other Belfast Trust sites in the future" she continued.