Chelsea and Westminster Hospital

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital has an innovative new changing and toilet facility. It is for people who cannot use standard accessible toilets, who have profound and multiple learning disabilities, or who have other disabilities which severely limit mobility such as muscular dystrophy and multiple sclerosis.

The ‘Changing Places’ facility, which is different to a standard or accessible toilet, includes an extra wide, height adjustable changing bench, shower facilities and a Liko hoist system. Access is via the RADAR key system.

This facility is the first of its kind in an acute trust in London and is available to any patient, visitor or member of the public who needs to use it.

The Mayor and Mayoress of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) officially opened the Changing Places facility during a visit on 10 December 2015.

Kathryn Mangold (Lead Nurse for Learning Disabilities and Transition) said: “This is a great facility and is really important to ensure we continue to do our best to provide the highest standard of service and access for all our patients.”

Mothers Hayley and Gina, who helped champion the facility, said: “We are really grateful to the Trust for taking on our concerns over the lack of accessible changing facilities for our daughters, Alice and Mia, both of whom have very complex physical needs. It will make such a difference to our visits to the hospital and we hope that this state-of-the-art, wonderful changing place will be the forerunner of many more such accessible facilities across other acute hospital trusts.”