Colin Ranshaw, chairman of South Lakeland Hydrotherapy Trust, argues that the Kendal pool needs adequate secure funding

HYDROTHERAPY, otherwise known as aquatic physiotherapy, is a specific form of physiotherapy treatment undertaken in a heated pool. Hydrotherapy treatment incorporates individual assessment, diagnosis and the use of clinical reasoning skills to formulate a treatment program appropriate to each patient’s needs.

This treatment is therapeutic and assists with relaxation, decreases pain, increases muscle strength and enhances overall mobility of the patient. The key benefits of hydrotherapy are from the heated water and resistance that the water provides.

The impact of this is far reaching and multi-facetted. Some of the conditions that hydrotherapy can help are:

• Neurological conditions eg strokes and brain and spinal cord injuries, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy

• Orthopaedic conditions e.g. trauma (fractures and soft tissue injuries), arthritis, pre- and post-joint replacement and amputation

• Spinal conditions eg acute and chronic lower back pain and pre- and post-spinal surgery

• Chronic rheumatological conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.

• Sensory or learning or profound and multiple difficulties

• Mental health patients and psychological well-being

• Terminally ill patients

Hydrotherapy is for non-swimmers and swimmers to exercise in a specialised facility (it is not swimming, nor is Sandgate Hydrotherapy Pool a swimming pool) where the water is significantly warmer than a swimming pool and, most importantly, the surrounding air temperature is also warmer.

It is more than 40 years since the Westmorland Mencap Society began a very ambitious plan to raise money to build a hydrotherapy pool in Kendal. They had the foresight to recognise the potential benefits. The site and £12,000 was donated from public funds.

Sandgate Hydrotherapy Pool was opened on November 12, 1977, by Peter Naylor, chairman of Cumbria County Council.

CCC continued has continued to support the pool but there was always the threat of withdrawal of funding as can be evidenced in this newspaper’s archives.

To ensure the pool remained viable the South Lakeland Hydrotherapy Trust (SLHT) with charitable status was formed in 2002 and has now a working partnership with CCC along with grant funding from other major stakeholders. In the last financial year (2016-17) the pool’s operating costs were £143,929 and CCC gave £44,000, Kendal Town Council £2,500, SLDC £2,500 and Cumbria Clinical Commissioning Group £15,000. The rest is made up from the operating income (charges) etc.

The pool is open seven days a week and last year there were 21,610 individual user sessions - a cost of £6.66 per user session, which is offset by individual payments, resulting in a funding cost of about £2.64 per individual user session. Loss of funding would mean patients would require land-based physiotherapy at a cost of about £45. There is about a six-week wait for physiotherapy treatment following GP referral which will worsen if the pool closes.

The management of chronic pain and disability poses a huge financial challenge to the NHS. Local NHS pain clinics have lengthy waiting lists and pain management programmes are outsourced at great expense. A local active rehabilitative hydrotherapy programme:

• Provides a cost-effective way of therapeutic reactivation

• Encourages independence through reconditioning and empowers patients

• Patients also return to work sooner and sometimes delay or do not require surgery.

• Helps to reduce patients frequenting the revolving door of the NHS.

• Reduces GP appointments

• Reduces the need for prescription medication

• Reduces the burden on physiotherapy departments.

We need to move away from the insecurity of an annual ‘cap in hand’ approach for grants to a ‘commissioned service’, which would guarantee the continuation and funding of the service for at least the next five years.

Replacing Cumbria CCG is Morecambe Bay CCG, which is North Lancashire and South Cumbria agreeing support for 2017-18 only. It is the body which is now the appropriate body to commission the hydrotherapy service.

Sandgate Hydrotherapy Pool services tick all the boxes of the Accountable Care System to be formed on April 1, 2018; (Bay Health and Care Partners) partnering Community and Acute Health Services.