Holidays for disabled people are in short supply. If you have aspirations of turning your holiday home into an all-inclusive, truly accessible space, firstly, thank you. We need more holiday home owners like you that want to make a difference to the lives of people with disabilities. Secondly, if you want to find out how to avoid making expensive mistakes when it comes to buying equipment, read on!
In a nutshell, an accessible holiday home is somewhere someone with a disability can go to relax and unwind without having to worry that they are going to run into problems with its facilities or layout. People searching for disabled holidays with hoists and profile beds expect more from a holiday home than just being able to get over the threshold with relative ease. Whilst level access is important, for someone holidaying with complex care needs, it simply isn’t enough for them to be able to enjoy a home from home experience.
Before you spend a penny on buying really expensive bits of equipment, take the time to consider what a person’s needs might be. Don’t just buy things you think people might want, ask questions of your target audience and their families. What equipment do they find most useful? What equipment aren’t they fans of? Utilise social media and engage with people. Find out exactly what people need you to offer before they will even consider adding your holiday destination to their shortlist.
There’s a fabulous group on Facebook called Accessible, Adapted or Disabled Holiday Lets, Places to Visit & Days Out UK – not only is it an invaluable resource to conduct your research but get it right and your diary will become extremely full, very quickly with little to no need to advertise!
Catering for absolutely everyone is an almost impossible task. This is why it is so important to understand your future guests and their needs. Picture your ideal guest, give them a name, draw them, and think about the accessibility issues they face in a typical holiday home or hotel. Solving those issues will be key to them coming to stay at your holiday homes with disabled facilities.
When creating an accessible holiday home, ensuring your guests have the most enjoyable, stress-free experience possible is your priority. You want them to come back next year and you want them to tell others about how amazing your disabled access holiday cottage is. How do you do that? A large percentage of your customer’s satisfaction will come from the quality of the equipment you have on offer.
The single most popular piece of equipment that any holiday home owner wishing to become more accessible is a profiling bed, sometimes called a hi-low bed. A profile bed is a bed that raises and lowers in height as well as adjusts at both ends for improved comfort and in-bed care.
Some accessible holiday home owners work with their local mobility shop and hire profiling beds in for its guests, others will leave it up to their guests to arrange. There’s no right or wrong here, we just think if you are trying to provide as stress-free an experience as possible, investing in your own profiling bed is the way to go.
It costs around £250 to hire a profiling bed for a week. A lot of money on top of the cost of the holiday. If you offered your guests the use of a profiling bed, you could instantly make your guest’s holiday more affordable by charging them just £50 extra to use it and if you took advantage of our Profiling Bed Bundle below, it will have paid for itself within 17 weeks of hire based on those figures.
The Lomond Community Profiling Bed with a Sensaflex 1000 mattress, side rail bumpers & free delivery is on offer right now for holiday home owners wanting to become more accessible. With tool-free assembly, it goes together and comes apart again (for storage) with ease. Use code: bundle60 at the checkout.
Mobile hoists are pieces of equipment that allow for the safe transfer of people from one position to another. They are easy to use and are either manually or battery operated. The weight capacity of a hoist varies between manufacturers and models. The higher the weight capacity, the more guests you are able to cater for. Slings (the fabric hammocks that accompany hoists which hold a person in position while they are being transferred) will also have their own weight capacities too but your guests will most likely bring these along with them. Whenever 2 pieces of equipment are being used in conjunction with one another, always adhere to lower weight capacity of the 2 products.
The Powerlifter 150 has a weight capacity of 150kg or 23.6 stone and is an incredibly reliable, compact hoist, used throughout the land in all sorts of care environments. It offers great value for money and dismantles into 2 sections for storage when not in use.
It is generally the preference of people with complex needs and their families to look for a holiday home that provides a tilt in space shower chair. Tilt in space means that when the chair reclines, the angle of the seat and back remain the same. Gravity helps to keep the person in position whilst using the chair. One of the best shower chairs on the market today is the Freeway T80 by Prism Medical and is manufactured right here in Great Britain.
Riser Recliner chairs encourage independence by supporting a person to get to their feet. Ensuring the longevity of your equipment is of paramount importance and so being able to thoroughly clean it after each use is vital. It is for this reason that investing in chairs with vapour permeable (VP), waterproof fabrics, sometimes called Dartex fabrics, is recommended. It is not only for hygienic reasons though, Dartex fabrics are also 4-way stretch, meaning they allow a person to benefit from the pressure relieving qualities of the seat cushion within.
The Havant Riser Recliner chair has the option of adding drop arms for easy side transfers for people that use wheelchairs. It uses Dartex fabrics for all contact areas. Outer fabrics are wipeable and waterproof and of the highest standard possible. The Havant has a “Medium” pressure relieving seat cushion as standard with the option to upgrade to a more enhanced level if required.
At HWB Mobility, we have the privilege of working with some amazing accessible holiday home owners here in Great Britain. We have been approached by established holiday home owners looking to source specific equipment and we have worked with businesses at the very start of their journeys into the world of disabled access holiday cottages.
Pippa & Dafydd are the owners of Hafan y Mynydd, a spacious double shepherd’s hut in Machynlleth, Mid Wales. They came to us at the very start of their accessible holiday project. Having received quotes elsewhere, they had no hesitation in giving us their order. 2 Havant Riser Recliners (pictured below), a custom made kingsize dual adjustable bed and a single adjustable bed. All of which were delivered and assembled just before Christmas of 2022 as scheduled.
It’s wonderful to follow their journey on social media as more and more people discover them. Pippa & Dafydd have since ordered a profiling bed to further enhance their accessibility and we look forward to watching them grow even more and supporting them in any way we can.
The growth of Steve and Claire’s fleet of accessible caravans at Holistic Thinking Holidays has been incredible. Putting a number on the caravans HTH have now would mean this post being out of date quickly! Let’s just say it’s a lot. Each caravan is located on a holiday park with good accessibility. What they manage to incorporate into each holiday home is quite incredible.
HWB Mobility are proud suppliers of HTH’s Junior Profiling Beds, accompanying pressure care mattresses and side rail bumpers. Despite their name, these beds still accommodate a large number of adults. Just not at the same time… Wherever Steve and Claire go next, we will hopefully be right behind them, installing another quality profiling bed.
Tina and Paul make holidaying with a person with complex needs a breeze. They provide absolutely everything you can think of and everything you didn’t think of too. So much so, when their guests return home, they end up buying that thing Tina had at Crescent Hideaway! With a hot tub and a hoist or steps with rails, everyone can enjoy the luxury of the warm bubbles.
The Harmony Riser Recliner Chair with built in pressure relief being expertly modelled by Paul of Crescent Hideaway. Tina and Paul have a tilt in space shower chair from us too.
Nicola of Leuchie House contacted us to supply a Junior Profiling Bed for Glen View Caravan in July 2023.
Watch the walk through video for an insight into the set up of Glen View. Every Leuchie break of 4, 7 or 11 nights includes comfortable accommodation with specialised equipment to meet individual needs, personalised care, occupational therapy, delicious home made food, activities, outings and entertainment, and a chance to book relaxing therapies and beauty treatments.
This blog will be updated as and when we make more holiday homes more accessible!
In February 2024, Mid Wales Lodges took advantage of our special offer for holiday home owners by ordering the profiling bed and mattress bundle. They also ordered an Oxford Midi 180 Hydraulic Hoist from us too!
Three huge fully-furnished lodges, set in a quiet countryside location with stunning mountain views. With four large ensuite bedrooms, an open plan living area and landscaped outdoor space with hot tub, their lodges offer the perfect rural getaway for families and friends. Awarded a 5-star Grading with Visit Wales, our accommodation is also fully accessible and pet-friendly.
Are you just starting out on your accessible holiday home journey? Maybe you’re already open for business but need to upgrade some of your equipment? Whatever your needs and requirements, we would love to help.
Did you know – we also arrange LOLER testing?
HWB Mobility is a small, family owned and run business based in South Wales. We Deliver our equipment throughout mainland Britain and offer an installation service too. Our passion lies in making your holiday home more accessible and providing you with a service that will delight.
