NHS Waste of money and resources

Most equipment does end up dumped - one of the newspapers ran a story about the scandal a few years ago with photos of the mountains of rusting equipment. Pretty typical of the NHS I would say - the right hand never knows what the left hand is doing.

The equipment my Mum needed when she lived with us for the last 4 years of her life came from our GP. I think it was the Community Nurse department. The day after she died they were knocking at the door asking for it all back!

I think the Red Cross rook some we were trying to get rid of!

I am surprised that the hospital supplies aids for home use. Here they are loaned out from the Community Loan Scheme and collected when no longer required. I thought this happened everywhere. The exception are crutches and walking aids from orthopaedic and fracture clinic.

Millbrook Health Care did not provide the items, they were provided by the hospital local to where my aunt lived. I have suggested to my cousin, her son, that he contacts a local care home to see if they can use them. It does seem such a shocking waste.

Like Maw, by aids were collected by Millbrook Health Care. Have you contacted them at all?

A local care home may be glad of equipment. That’s where some of ours went. The rest was passed on to another elderly relative. I couldn’t bear to think of it going to the tip!

Exactly the same here. We tried for two years to give back various items that my late FiL had been given. In the end we had to dispose of some items. (And now I've just had a hip replacement I wish we'd kept them all! )

Similar scenario here in France Maw.

When I had my hips replaced I was told that anything worth less than £100 wasn’t worth while recycling as it cost too much to do it. Someone made use of the toilet raiser but I have 2 grabbers and two lots of crutches it does seem madness.

Oh that drives me nuts too! I resorted to Freecycle and Freegle when I was trying to return my aids after a period of surgical trauma. I was so pleased to find people who needed my stuff.

The hospital won't take anything but crutches here,
The charity shops won't take them at all and I was told the only place for them is the tip.
That is where most of them end up.
It obviously varies in different parts of the country.
The chap who delivered ours said no-one will take them here, to just dispose of them.

All Paws mobility aids etc such as the things you mention were collected by Millbrook Health Care who had delivered them and will have even steam cleaned and sterilised and reissued by now.
I don’t recognise your scenario.