The Moonstone Appeal is raising money to build a new purpose built Therapy Centre for the West Of England MS Therapy Centre Charity.
Within Bristol, South Gloucestershire, North Somerset and B&NES there are some 1700 people living with MS and there are approximately 100 new diagnoses each year. Currently, within the existing building, we help some 300 people live, and live well, with a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis.
Whilst the standard of care is very high and the therapies we provide are vital to people with MS, the existing building does not provide us with the best facility to offer these therapies.
We need your help to build a new purpose built therapy centre to enable us to care for more people with MS and provide a wider range of services. People with MS desperately need ongoing therapy, care and support, however little is provided to them within the NHS.
By building a new centre we will be able to provide therapies to help alleviate some of the symptoms and improve quality of life.
Users of the existing West of England Therapy Centre at Nailsea
At present there are around 300 active regular users – all of whom have MS |
- On average 60-70 people attend each day.
- A typical user spends 1.5 to 3 hours at the centre on each visit.
- On average they attend once per week.
- The centre makes every effort to avoid refusing a visit or use of the facilities, although currently not all can be given their first choice of appointment.
- Our hope is that once the new centre has been built we will be able to help over 600 people.
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The new centre will be open to anyone with Multiple Sclerosis at whatever stage. Some of the therapies we offer may help people who have other illnesses:
- Spastic and rheumatic illnesses
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The current building for the West Of England MS Therapy Centre is situated to the rear of the Southfield Rd Trading Estate in Nailsea. Other business on the estate include motor repair businesses, a hydro engineering business and a builders merchant to name but a few.
In this setting it is very difficult to create the right therapeutic atmosphere and access can, at times, be dangerous for wheelchair users as the volume of industrial traffic is high. Although we make the best of it the unit it is wholly inappropriate for a therapy centre and places severe limitations on the services we provide to people with MS for the following reasons:
- For MS alone it is estimated that there are 1700 people in the catchment area. Current records show that 84 of the 300 current users are drawn from just three very local postcode areas out of 52 postcode areas in which users reside. Therefore we are only serving a small proportion of those affected by MS.
- We are unable to develop some of the additional services which we know people with MS would benefit from e.g. Occupational Therapy which has been shown to help with particular management of the distressing cognitive problems associated with MS.
- The building is not cost effective to heat in winter.
- As many of the therapies take place at the same within the building all to often they can conflict e.g. the mechanism of the oxygen tank can be heard around the Centre making therapies that require lower levels of noise such as counselling difficult. The working environment for staff is difficult and there is no meeting room or private area. There is barely any room for the storage of physio equipment and exercise equipment.
- There is currently no provision for people to stay once they have received the therapies.
- Clients have had their cars repeatedly damaged by heavy traffic that shares the trading estate.
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