Trust launches walking Aid reuse and Recycle Scheme

In 2023-2024 Sherwood Forest Hospitals Trust issued over 13,000 walking aids, the carbon footprint of these being the equivalent of driving from London to Edinburgh and back 491 times. A large number of them were never returned to the Trust.

On Saturday 1 February 2025, the Trust launched the walking aid return and reuse scheme. Members of the public can return unused metal walking aids such as crutches, sticks and frames. The equipment is safety checked, repaired, and reissued where appropriate, or recycled when not safe for reuse.

People can return any unwanted walking aids, irrespective of when or where they got them from, to any of our three sites in the following locations:

King’s Mill Hospital

Clinic 10 (Therapy Services) or main entrance.

Mansfield Road

Sutton-In-Ashfield

NG17 4JL

Tel: 01623 672384

Accessible 24/7

Mansfield Community Hospital

Rehab Unit

Stockwell Gate,

Mansfield

NG18 5QJ

Tel 01623 785122

Open Mon-Fri 08:00 - 16:00

Newark Hospital

Byron House

Boundary road

Newark

NG24 4DE

Tel: 01636 685885

Open Mon-Fri 08:00 - 16:00

The drop-off points will remain permanent sites that the public can return their walking aids to going forwards. 

Therapy services at King’s Mill Hospital will be working with the British Red Cross, who have an extremely robust equipment return and reuse system which means more of the equipment returned to us can be refurbished and sent back into circulation.  Walking aids will be tracked to individual patients going forwards which will improve patient safety, particularly if any walking aids have safety recalls.

Refurbishing walking aids will reduce the quantity of new walking aids being issued in the Trust, and in turn reduce the CO² emissions associated with manufacturing.

Deborah Kerry, a Physiotherapist currently on secondment with the Improvement Faculty at Sherwood Forest Hospitals Trust, said: “The relaunch of this scheme is another step forwards in the Trust’s drive towards achieving the Net Zero target and I am really excited to be project lead. I hope the public will embrace the scheme, which will have a positive environmental and financial impact”