Optimum Solution to Meeting Home Care Hygiene

Budget constraints in meeting the needs of people requiring home care for the short, medium or long term can be eased with an innovative financing package from Total Hygiene Ltd.

The ‘Better Outcomes Lower Costs’ report maintains ‘for the same money as having a carer come in every day to lift a disabled person on and off a commode, that person could have an automatic toilet which they can use whenever they please, and which gives them more autonomy and dignity’.

Total Hygiene, manufacturer of the Clos-o-Mat automatic ‘wash and dry’ toilet which is the only unit of its kind not only manufactured in the UK but specifically developed for disabled people, has developed a range of supply alternatives for care providers- from short-term rental through refurbishment to outright purchase. The options optimize flexibility for care providers, enabling them to provide ‘best value’ in meeting the needs of people requiring toileting help.

Robin Tuffley, Total Hygiene marketing manager, elaborates, “How do you put a cost on someone’s pride, privacy, dignity and sense of independence, in being able to carry out even this most basic function with reduced or no help, which we all do, and up to eight times a day? And there are the psychological benefits for the carer, not having to wipe the person clean after toileting.

“In a long term situation, buying a Clos-o-Mat can equate to less than 20p/day*, to give someone the ability to toilet with reduced or no assistance, whenever they want, instead of relying on carer assistance. Even with a short-term rental, the cost is as little as £3.20/day*, which yields valuable savings over the cost of, as the ‘Better Outcomes’ report says, sending in a carer to help someone toilet, and frees that carer’s time to be used elsewhere.”

The rental option is available for as little as three months, and includes both the taking out of a traditional WC, installation of the Clos-o-Mat then removal of the Clos-o-Mat and replacement with a conventional toilet when the Clos-o-Mat is no longer required- all for under £350/month. It thus provides a ‘fast track’ solution to meeting someone’s short-term personal hygiene requirements.

To optimize effective use of budgets within short and medium term requirements, the refurbishment option covers collection of an existing Clos-o-Mat, its complete overhaul and return to the care provider with a new 12 month warranty. As a result, a Clos-o-Mat purchased for a specific tenant who no longer needs it can in effect be ‘recycled’, and installed in a new location with the provider’s complete peace of mind with regard to the Clos-o-Mat’s levels of hygiene, infection control, and reliability.

When someone requires the benefits of an automatic ie wash and dry toilet long term, then a Clos-o-Mat unit’s purchase price, which includes installation, uses less than 10% of a Disabled Facilities Grant. Clos-o-Mats are still in regular use more than 30 years’ after they were initially installed.

Total Hygiene (www.clos-o-mat.com) has over 30 years’ expertise in developing, supplying and maintaining toileting aids; its Clos-o-Mat wash and dry toilet is the most successful unit of its type, the biggest selling, and the only one with WRAS approval enabling legal connection to the mains water supply. Today, some 40,000 Clos-o-Mats are installed in the UK. The company’s extensive range of options, from grab rails to height adjustable Clos-o-Mats enables a bathroom or washroom adaptation to be selected and installed, from one source.