2nd October 2025
Belfast Trust is making it easier for patients and service users to navigate their way through three of its hospitals.
AccessAble guides are a number of online resources that help people find specific destinations within the hospital. Each Detailed Access Guide describes the patient journey and gives disabled people, carers and those with long-term health conditions the information required to plan their visit in advance.
The Detailed Access Guides for Belfast Trust cover facilities, wards and departments at the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH), the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children, and Royal Jubilee Maternity Hospital. Over the past 12 months, the Trust’s Guides have been viewed 48,252 times by 31,163 users.
The Guides include photographs and detailed directions and cover everything from arrival on the RVH site, to the facilities throughout the hospital, including lifts, stairs, reception areas, consultation rooms or wards and accessible toilets.
As everyone’s accessibility needs are different, the Trust acknowledges the need to have detailed, accurate information available. The Detailed Access Guides are available on Belfast Trust’s website and AccessAble’s website in a range of accessible formats. Click here for more information – http://bit.ly/3VHHY89
Conor O’Kane who is 37 is a wheelchair user and outpatient at Belfast Trust’s Royal Victoria Hospital and is one of thousands of patients with additional needs.
“I use AccessAble to help me get around. Being in a wheelchair, it’s great to be able to plan in advance how to get to somewhere on a route that is suitable to me, and the information on the AccessAble guides is key to my planning. I would recommend anyone who is going to the hospital for the first time and maybe is a bit daunted by the thought of navigating your way through to go to the website and use the information to help you. It just makes life so much easier and takes stress and worry out of going to a hospital appointment.”
The Guides include photographs and detailed directions and cover everything from arrival on the RVH site, to the facilities throughout the hospital, including lifts, stairs, reception areas, consultation rooms or wards and accessible toilets.
Pictured (Left to Right)
Alistair Campbell Director of Performance, Planning & Informatics, Belfast Trust, Ellen Ilot from AccessAble, Orla Barron, Interim Co-Director of Planning and Equality, Belfast Trust, David Porter, Director of Strategic Development, Belfast Trust, patient and service user Conor O’Kane, Estella Dorrian, Senior Equality and Planning Manager, Belfast Trust, and Siobhan O’Kane, Conor’s mum.