The need for Hospices to be able to offer cost-effective, space-efficient and comfortable overnight facilities for visitors is just as pressing as that for Hospitals.
Patients approaching the end of their lives derive an enormous amount of comfort from being able to have a partner, family member, close friend, or carer stay with them in a Hospice, as do their close family and friends and the criteria are exactly the same as for Hospitals.
By accommodating Visitors on a bed which can be located right next to the patient’s bed and folded up, or away in the morning, without the loss of valuable day-time Ward space, or disrupting nursing routines, the requirement to provide separate rooms for visitors is completely eliminated and Hospice patients and Visitors prefer to sleep close to one another, anyway, rather than in separate rooms.
Our award winning, high performance ‘GLIDEAWAY’® Visitor Guestbeds and ‘WISKAWAY’® Visitor Wallbeds are routinely used for this purpose in Hospices up and down the country.
In 2019 we were approached by St. Luke’s Hospice in Harrow, who had hitherto been using only mobile guest beds to accommodate patients’ partners, relatives, friends and carers overnight, but were curious about Wallbeds.
At exactly that time, we were looking for a London-based customer willing to try out a potential new ‘Vertical’ Wallbed variant for us, which we were considering producing for a new-build Hospital project.
The sample new variant would offer the Hospice the chance to try out a wall bed and compare it with the guest beds they were used to using, whilst simultaneously providing us with some experience of how the new model would perform in service.
Following a successful trail of some months, during which the Hospice found out just how practical, comfortable and convenient wall beds can be, compared to mobile guest beds, they decided to order some more wallbeds for several of their rooms.
In the end, we decided not to put the new variant into production, so we let them keep the trial bed for a reduced price and supplied a number of additional 2nd generation ‘Vertical’ WISKAWAY’® 7500H Wallbeds for the other suitable rooms.
The big advantage of our Wallbeds, over mobile guest beds is that, because the mattresses do not need to fold, the beds can be pivoted away, in literally seconds, complete with all the bedding, including the pillows. This makes them much easier and more convenient to use, means less Manual Handling all round and substantial time and cost savings for the Ward staff.
