How to find your nearest hydrotherapy pool

Finding your nearest hydrotherapy pool is a problem many families and care professionals face across the UK.

Closures of public facilities and rising costs have contributed to a growing inaccessibility, whilst a lack of information about available pools makes the process even harder.

Those who require hydrotherapy often have complex needs. As a result, they may need additional support with equipment like hoisting or a hygiene room.

Without those details, users and care professionals lose confidence that the pool they are looking for can actually meet their needs.

To help tackle these issues, this blog delves into the wider conversation about hydrotherapy inaccessibility, detailing key statistics and how the HydroPool Finder that can help overcome this growing problem.

 

Jump Straight To –

• Where is my nearest hydrotherapy pool?
• HydroPool Finder
• Get notified about available pools
• Adding a pool you know about

 

 

Where is my nearest hydrotherapy pool?

 

Discovering a nearby hydrotherapy pool in the UK can feel like an uphill task.

Despite there being approximately 180 hydrotherapy pools accessible to the public across the nation, regular access remains elusive.

As a result, this hurdle forces thousands of families and care professionals to grapple with daily inconveniences, including:

• Limited availability due to hydrotherapy pools often being situated in schools and operating solely during school hours and terms.
• Financial barriers as privately-owned hydrotherapy pools can demand up to £75 for just thirty minutes.
• Lengthy journeys, with a Muscular Dystrophy UK study revealing that nearly 20% of respondents travel between 20 and 100 miles to reach a hydrotherapy pool.
• Accessibility issues such as the absence of hoists or suitable changing facilities at some locations.

The culmination of these problems has created a stark reality.

 

 

According to research undertaken by Muscular Dystrophy UK there are over 362 hydrotherapy pools dedicated solely to animals in the UK, compared to approximately 180 accessible for individuals with muscle-wasting conditions.

Taking these statistics into account, we can see that for every hydrotherapy pool available for a person with a muscle-wasting condition in the UK, there are more than two pools available for animals to use.

It delivers a strong message of the challenge many are facing when trying to find their nearest hydrotherapy pool.

 

HydroPool Finder

So far we’ve highlighted the issues that families and care professionals face when trying to find a suitable nearby hydro pool.

However, what solutions are available to help tackle this growing problem?

In association with the ATACP and The Paddock Pool, Innova have created the HydroPool Finder, an innovative tool to help not only find your nearest hydrotherapy pool, but also the right pool for your specific needs.

Working with pool providers across the UK to add their available pools to the system, the HydroPool Finder enables users to search for pools in their area, as well as filter specific searches such as cost per session, length of pool and check if the pool has hoisting equipment.

 

 

Each hydro pool listed on the finder includes information such as the pool’s address, facilities on site, pool availability, pictures of the pool and cost to use.

The ‘Featured Pools’ section of the HydroPool Finder has more in-depth information, including details of the aquatic practitioners on site and links to available brochures.

 

Get notified about available pools

To ensure you are notified about your nearest hydrotherapy pool or find out about any new pools that have been added to the database, you can sign up to a new pool alert.

Simply select the region or regions that you are interested in and through the HydroPool Finder, you will be notified about the latest pools available.

Adding a pool you know about

We want to help the HydroPool Finder grow!

To help support our mission of making hydrotherapy more accessible, we’re asking those who use hydro pools to notify us of the facilities they use on a regular basis.

 

 

By adding more public pools to the finder, we can help increase awareness of the nearest hydrotherapy pools for families and care professionals.

To add a hydrotherapy pool, create an account with the HydroPool Finder and post the name and address of the pool, as well as any further details that you are aware of.

In doing so, a member of the Innova team will get in touch with owners of the pool facility to verify the facility, getting their contact details, pool and equipment specifications as well as any information regarding costs and pool availability.

Once the details have been added and checked, we’ll build the pool’s profile on the finder before publishing it, notifying any users who have signed up to the notification alert.

 

Summary

 

With access to public hydrotherapy pools becoming more difficult, we hope that the introduction of the HydroPool Finder will help more families and care professionals find facilities that meet their needs.

By increasing visibility of available pools and showcasing what they offer, there is a platform that people can use to not only locate their nearest hydrotherapy pool, but also the right pool to meet their needs.

Use the contact form below to speak to one of our experts to learn more about our hydrotherapy pool service.