Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has been awarded a quality assurance mark by a leading provider of disability related advice and support to business.

The Trust received a CredAble Access mark from Derbyshire based company Nimbus Disability for its commitment and approach to meeting the car parking needs of patients and visitors with disabilities.

In 2013, a number of changes were made to Burton Hospital’s three car parks to ensure each hospital (Queen’s Hospital in Burton, Samuel Johnson Community Hospital in Lichfield and Sir Robert Peel Community Hospital in Tamworth)was much easier to access for disabled people and their carers

The Trust’s three car parks became barrier free so the system does not rely on users stretching to take the ticket out of the machine on the their way in or out of the car park.  A scheme was introduced to enable Blue Badge holders to pre-register their car registration numbers and receive additional parking time when visiting hospitals, and a flexible payment option became available so patients and visitors could pay for their parking when they got home.

Martin Austin, Manager Director at Nimbus, said:

“We awarded Burton Hospitals a CredAble Access mark because of the actions staff have taken to ensure their car parks across all three sites meet the needs of their disabled patients and visitors.  It naturally takes longer for some disabled people to get around and the staff approach at Burton Hospitals has been flexible and inclusive. The Trust also set up a new ‘Access Group’ to ensure that people with mobility issues and their carers are able to feedback their experiences of the new system and help make improvements.”

Geoff Neild, Head of Estates at Burton Hospitals, said:

“We’re delighted to have received accreditation from Nimbus.  We’ve worked closely with Nimbus over the past two years to seek advice on how to improve our system we’ve received a lot of positive feedback from patients and visitors who have found the system much easier to use since we’ve introduced a number of positive changes.  We will continue to work with Nimbus and our access group to improve accessibility for our patients and visitors with disabilities.”