MS Therapy Centre Beds & Northants

The Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire MS Therapy Centre

We are a charity that provides a wide range of support and therapies to people living with MS

Therapies

Our therapies include: neuro physiotherapy, orthotics, hydrotherapy & APS pain relief. Our MS Specialist Nurse can help with all aspects of your MS. We offer a number of complementary therapies such as reflexology, pilates, Bowen and oxygen therapy.

About Us

Our charity, set up in 1983, provides therapies, services and support needed to enable people living with Multiple Sclerosis to self-manage their condition.

If you have MS, please come and see us – there is something here for you.

Partial reopening of the Centre from 5th August 2020

We are pleased to announce that we are planning to partially reopen the Centre from 5th August. We will open, initially, for limited days, times and therapies.

In the coming weeks you will be contacted by someone from the Centre to discuss the possibility of you returning. We imagine that all of our members will be as excited as we are to return to the Centre, but please do not contact us to begin with, but wait for us to get in touch with you. Thank you so much for your patience and continuing support since lockdown began. We are looking forward to gradually welcoming you back!

In the meantime we remain closed to members visiting in person, but we can support you over the phone.

Please call 01234 325781 for a nursing appointment or help with exercise via our virtual programmes.

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Events

Annual General Meeting

Tuesday July 28th at 2pm

This year we will hold the AGM online via Zoom.

We hope that lots of you will join us. All are welcome. Please email Harriet to access the link to the virtual meeting.

Online seated Pilates classes

Tuesdays & Thursdays at 11.30

Live Facebook classes on Tuesdays. Zoom pilates class on Thursdays. For the Zoom classes, please see this page for joining details. All welcome.

Tai Chi at home

Wednesdays and Fridays at 11.30

Join our Tai Chi teacher, Jenny, for her popular online live Facebook sessions. Please go over to the video page of our Facebook site to see the videos.

Please donate your original postcard-sized art

Our hugely successful pop-up art exhibition had to be cancelled, but we are replacing it with an online event featuring original postcard-sized art in all mediums.

If you are able to donate an original piece of postcard-sized art we would love to hear from you.

Please visit our art page for more details.

Virtual gardening exhibition

Show us how your garden grows in our virtual gardening exhibition. Click here to enter.

Virtual quiz every Monday

See our Events page to join our virtual quiz on Mondays at 7.30pm.

Nursing support

If you would like some support from Emma, our MS nurse, please email her, or call the Centre and Emma will call you back. Emma works on Thursdays.

01234 325781 [email protected]

Please see this page to contact Miranda, now working as Community MS nurse specialist in Bedfordshire.

2.6 challenge

See how our inventive challengers are getting on

There are a great variety of activities going on. Please encourage them with your sponsorship

Physio support

We have a series of exercise programs that have been pre-prepared by our physiotherapist.

You can access the programs by clicking the links below and on our physio page.

Lower limb strengthening

Advanced lower limb strengthening

Once the program opens, please click on ‘video’ above each of the images on the left hand side to play the videos.

Information from Emma about MS and coronavirus

Emma, our MS nurse, says “Our Neurologist has stated that following government guidelines is advised:

– MS is a medical co-morbidity and therefore patients should social distance and if still concerned, they should self-isolate, whether on a DMT or not
– If you are 70+ years or wheelchair dependent then you should be self-isolating
– Carers working in the community e.g. schools, need to make an individual choice, however being in the community will put them at risk. See this link to find out what social distancing means.“

Help with some MS research

If you’d like to help MS research into the risks of, and interplay, between coronavirus, DMTs and MS.
maybe you would like to support a study, led by Dr Nikos Evangelou and Dr Richard Nicholas via the MS Register, investigating the above issues.
If so, please join UK MS Register and take part in the survey: ukmsregister.org/coronavirus

Welfare benefits advice

Joanna Evan-Jones is a welfare benefits adviser for the MS Society in Northamptonshire. She can still give assistance to anyone who has an MS diagnosis who needs advice on benefits they may be entitled to. Joanne can help with the completion of disability benefit forms such as PIP or Attendance Allowance. Please email [email protected] for full details.

Annual survey.

This is an important part of our service to you, so please help us to help you by filling it in It only takes a few minutes, and you can do it from your phone! https://surveyhero.com/c/4c0529cc

Volunteer coffee morning

Saturday 29 February . 10am – noon

Join us to hear about all of the volunteering opportunities that you can get involved with. You don’t need to commit to loads of time or effort – all help is incredibly valuable. Meet existing volunteers and find out what the benefits to volunteering can be. There’s cake too!

Find out more by calling 01234 325781 or emailing [email protected]

Charity Sale

Sorry, postponed until further notice.

Please don’t bring us more bric-a-brac for the time being as we can’t store it. Thank you.

Quiz night

Friday 13th March £11pp includes supper.

Always a fun evening. Book early to make sure you don’t miss out.

Book your team of up to 6 people by calling 01234 325781 or emailing [email protected]

APS Therapy

Watch our informative new video about this therapy, filmed by the MS Trust.

Equipment advice

Tuesday 6th August 10.30am – 2pm. The Disability Resource Centre will be here to answer your questions. Open to members of the public. Free. Full details.

See our Artists’ work

Our Pop-Up Art Exhibition was a great success, raising nearly £8,000.

Take a look at our page of artists’ works – for a taster of just some of the work that was on show.

Opening times:

We are currently closed due to the coronavirus situation.

We can support you over the phone, or online.

Please call 01234 325781 for a nursing appointment or we can help with exercise via our virtual programmes.

Please donate

The MS Therapy Centre receives no statutory funding, just the money we raise ourselves through our fundraising activities.

To be able to provide all our therapies and facilities, we rely on kind donations.

Please consider donating today – there are so many ways for you to help us raise the £1,000+ a day that we need to run the Centre.

Thank You

We couldn’t do any of our good work without the help of so many people who help us financially and practically.

Visit our Thank You page to read more.

Thank you to the Panacea Charitable Trust for a substantial donation to the work of our Specialist Nurses in MS. You can read all about the donation here.

Our new treadmill in action. Purchased thanks to a grant from Aims2Cure, this treadmill also includes the facility for people who can bear weight, but have problems with balance, to be supported by a sling. Another tool for our neuro-physiotherapists to help people with MS maintain their mobility.
www.aims2cure.org.uk

News

Congratulations to Miranda for taking on the new MS nurse role at Bedford hospital. We are pleased that patients with a Bedfordshire GP will now have a local NHS-funded MS nurse service. This will mean some changes at the MS Therapy Centre from April, but you will still see Miranda around, and Emma will still be working as usual. Please see this page for more details and to find out how to get your name on Miranda’s NHS list.

Winners of 100 Club – June 2020

First place: Julie Nemeth – Ball no 1
Second place: Justine Barry – Ball no 77
Third place: Maureen Spring – Ball no. 63

For fundraising enquiries please email [email protected]

AGM June 2019 (accounts year 2018)

The AGM was held on Monday 10th June 2019. For the first time, we held the meeting during the daytime with the view that more members would be able to attend. We will continue to hold the meeting in the daytime and will change days each year so that everyone has equal opportunity to join in the meeting.

Please find attached the minutes of the AGM, which include a report by the Chair of the year’s activities, and also our audited accounts.

Audited accounts year ending 2018

AGM 2019 minutes

Will You Take Up Our £50 Challenge?

We have started a new initiative.

We will lend you £50, then you use your skills to make it grow and raise funds for us.

A great exercise for schools and businesses to develop business skills, team work and social responsibility.

What People Say About Us

We are very proud to receive great feedback from our members.

“We are lucky to have such a well-equipped and expertly-staffed Centre in Bedford.“

“The information I can get on specific issues is really helpful.“

“Networking with other people with MS is very useful as you can share your problems & successes.”

GDPR – How we can contact you

If you are a member or supporter of the Centre and would like to let us know how we can contact you, please click the button below and fill out the form, stating your preferences. For more information on GDPR click here

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