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Why we depend on donations
The high staff-patient ratio, the involvement of
horses and the need to hire equine facilities
make hippotherapy quite costly compared to
other physiotherapy interventions. In addition
to the actual hippotherapy treatment sessions,
the horses used have to be exercised and
schooled specifically for hippotherapy on an
ongoing basis. This is to ensure that they are
fit and able to cope with the considerable
physical and mental challenge of a potentially
very unbalanced person on their back. This
requires specialist knowledge and a
substantial amount of time.
We recognise that people with disabilities and
families with children who have a disability are
financially disadvantaged. We are aware that
spending money on specialist physiotherapy
treatment is an extra financial burden for many
people. Therefore, we would like to make this
wonderful and effective specialist physio-
therapy treatment with and on the horse
available to clients who can benefit for free.
We regret that at the moment we are not in a
position to do that, as the NHS does not
currently pay for the cost of hippotherapy.
However, we have chosen different ways in
which to keep the cost of hippotherapy to our
clients to a minimum.
First and foremost, we are a not-for-profit
organisation. This means that all the profits we
make are reinvested in the company to benefit our
patients, and do not go into the pockets of
shareholders or into bonuses.
Also, the full cost price of six hippotherapy
treatments including two assessment is currently
£995. However, this is not what we charge.
We subsidise our service heavily with our own
time; for example, we do not charge for the time
we spend on the hippotherapy-specific ongoing
training of the horse (about 5 hours per week).
Furthermore, our clinical specialist physiotherapist
is willing to work for less than half of the hourly
rate she would expect to earn in private practice.
She also makes her horse available for
hippotherapy for free.
If we did not charge for the service we provide at
the level we do, we would not be able to provide
the service, and patients could not benefit.
This is why we appeal for sponsorship/donations.
Please click on the links on the left to find out
more about what we seek sponsorship for and
how you may be able to support our work.
Horse Power for Ability is the trade name of Horses for Health CLG. We are a not-for-profit organisation. Chair: Dr Dorothee Debuse
Registered office: Heather Lodge, Edlingham, Alnwick, Northumberland, NE66 2BL, UK. Tel: 01665-574727
