3 Best Mobile Hoists for Care Homes
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With so many mobile hoists available, how do you decide which one is right for your care home environment? What are the differences and how much do they cost?
As Medaco supplies a variety of manufacturers’ mobile hoists and other moving and handling equipment, our customers often ask for recommendations on the best mobile hoists for their care homes. So we thought we’d share this information in this comprehensive article.
We asked our mobile hoist experts, who have many years of experience offering patient handling equipment solutions to care homes, to recommend their top mobile hoists and score them for the following factors: Quality, ease of use, adaptability, accessories, maintenance and parts.
The top 3 scorers made it onto this list, but we’ve also provided an honourable mentions list at the bottom of this article so you can see what our experts recommended.
1. Oxford Presence Mobile Hoist
Best Mobile Hoist for Care Homes with Wide-Ranging Care Needs
Joerns Healthcare manufactures the Oxford Presence mobile hoist. It is a heavy-duty mobile lifting hoist that copes easily in heavy use environments. Whether lifting from the floor or onto a high surface, the Oxford Presence has an astonishing lifting range. Because of the size, this mobile hoist is best suited for purpose-built or larger care homes that have the floor space to manoeuvre it around. We recommend the Oxford Presence with the positioning cradle option as an alternative to the Arjo Maxi move and Maxi Twin Mobile Hoist.
Expert Opinion on the Oxford Presence Mobile Hoist:
The Oxford Presence mobile hoist is an excellent quality hoist, proven with the 5-year warranty, which comes as standard.
It’s part of Joerns’ Professional range of hoists, which are made from aluminium, meaning they are lightweight to manoeuvre around. The Presence can lift individuals weighing up to 227 kg (500 lbs) which makes it suitable for care homes with a variety of service users at different weights.
Even though the Oxford Presence is a large hoist, it is still easy to use because of its ergonomic design features. The foot ‘push pad’ helps reduce any force needed to start the forward movement and the oversized push handles improve handling and manoeuvrability. The Presence also incorporates electric leg adjustments which care staff operate from the handset, allowing for smooth movements of the hoist.
One feature of the Presence hoist is the reach, which is very long. This means you can put it under a profiling bed and care staff can position the service user exactly where they need to, even if the bed is extra wide. Because of the excellent lifting height, the Presence is also great for tall service users.
The Oxford Presence mobile hoist is highly adaptable because of its interchangeable spreader bar and cradle options, giving you a choice of sling systems to use in one home. You can either use the 6-point spreader bar for loop-fixing slings or a 4-point positioning cradle for clip-fixing slings. The positioning cradle comes in powered or manual versions, however, the powered spreader bar uses a separate battery and charger.
As well as the interchangeable sling bars mentioned above, you can also fit an optional digital weigh-scale device to aid patient monitoring. This Class III certified weigh scale is extremely compact and has a dual-screen display for ease of use.
The Presence mobile hoist uses standard batteries that many mobile hoists use, so getting replacement batteries is easy. Especially from a supplier such as Medaco who has good stock levels of common spare parts. It also features the Smart™ Monitor control system, which records the exact amount of work completed by the actuator. This intelligent system advises the user to schedule key maintenance work, helping to ensure it remains in optimum condition.
As the Oxford Presence mobile hoist is a large hoist, it isn’t suitable for smaller care homes with limited space in their rooms or limited storage capacity. This is where either the Oxford Advance or the Invacare Birdie Evo might be more suitable.
| Quality | Ease of use | Adaptability | Accessories | Maintenance |
| 20 | 18 | 19 | 17 | 18 |
Total Score: 92/100
2. Oxford Advance Mobile Hoist
Best ‘All-Rounder’ Mobile Hoist
The Oxford Advance mobile hoist is another great hoist manufactured by Joerns Healthcare. It is a compact folding mobile hoist that is small and versatile, yet incredibly capable, making it a good ‘all-rounder’ mobile hoist. The Advance is suited to all care homes, whether purpose-built or smaller traditional care homes where space is sometimes limited.
Expert Opinion on the Oxford Advance Mobile Hoist:
The Oxford Advance mobile hoist is also from Joerns’ Professional range of hoists, so comes with the same high quality and 5-year warranty as to the Presence mobile hoist.
The Advance can lift 155kg (341 lbs) which is suitable for most service users in care homes. Weighing only 31.7 kg total, the Advance mobile hoist is lightweight enough for any care staff to use. Being made from aluminium means it’s easy to manoeuvre across a variety of surfaces. The Oxford Advance hoist has ergonomic design features, making it very easy to use. Including a foot ‘push pad’ which reduces the force needed to start the forward movement and oversized push handles to improve handling and manoeuvrability.
A significant feature of the Oxford Advance mobile hoist is its compact folding design for easy transport and storage. This allows your service users to travel outside of the care home if needed, for instance, if you organised a day trip or family outing. The triangular folded design ensures the hoist can stand unaided when being stored or transported, without it becoming unstable.
You can use the Advance mobile hoist with a shallow 4-point positioning cradle, compatible with most clip-fixing slings. This provides your care home with a greater choice of sling systems with one hoist. This shallow design of the positioning cradle doesn’t affect the lifting height of the Advance, which is smaller than the Presence.
The Oxford Advance hoist uses standard batteries that many mobile hoists use, so getting replacement batteries is easy. Especially from a supplier such as Medaco who has good stock levels of common spare parts. Like the Presence, it also features the Smart™ Monitor control system, which records the exact amount of work completed by the actuator. This intelligent system advises the user to schedule key maintenance work, helping to ensure it remains in optimum condition.
The Oxford Advance mobile hoist is great for any care environment, whether large or small, high use or just occasional. It is good quality and long-lasting, with a stylish design–a true ‘all-rounder’ hoist that comes highly recommended.
| Quality | Ease of use | Adaptability | Accessories | Maintenance |
| 20 | 20 | 17 | 16 | 18 |
Total Score: 91/100
3. Invacare Birdie EVO Mobile Hoist
Best Mobile Hoist for Care Homes on a Budget
Invacare specially designed the Birdie EVO mobile hoist to offer a comfortable lift and transfer to or from beds and chairs. Ideal for smaller domestic and residential care environments, the hoist folds and unfolds easily with no tools. The Birdie EVO mobile hoist is well-known in the care industry and Invacare has developed and enhanced the latest model to keep it relevant for current care environments.
Expert Opinion on the Invacare Birdie EVO Mobile Hoist:
The Invacare Birdie EVO mobile hoist is a great option for care homes on a tight budget because of its price. It isn’t as high quality as some of the other hoists, but it’s good quality for the price, making it fantastic value for money. It also comes with a 5-year warranty on the frame.
The Birdie EVO hoist is made from steel, therefore is heavier than the Advance hoist. Similar to the Advance, the dimensions of this hoist mean it is ideal for most rooms and spaces. An alternative to the Birdie EVO is the Birdie EVO Compact hoist, which has an even smaller footprint and is ideal when space is tight. Care staff like the design of the boom and spreader bar, as it allows them to maintain eye contact with service users throughout the transfer. The curved leg design enables effortless movement around objects.
This hoist can easily fold to take up minimal space when stored. Staff can also push it along when folded for easy transport.
Accessories for the Birdie EVO mobile hoist include a scale that staff can attach between the boom and the spreader bar. Spreader bar options include either a 2-point or 4-point spreader bar in various widths.
As with the other hoists on this list, the Birdie EVO also comes with standard batteries that are easy to get for maintenance. It has a status indicator on the control box which shows the battery life, as well as information on the remaining lifts that can be achieved with the battery. The biggest concern we hear about this mobile hoist is an issue with the leg adjustment slowly loosening. This causes the legs to open as it’s being pushed, which makes them harder to use until the engineer repairs them.
The Invacare Birdie EVO mobile hoist is ideal for smaller care homes that are conscious of budget. Care settings can also use this hoist if they don’t deliver the type of care where service users need frequent transfers. You can use it on this occasion as a backup.
| Quality | Ease of use | Adaptability | Accessories | Maintenance |
| 15 | 17 | 11 | 12 | 14 |
Total Score: 69/100
Other Mobile Hoist Considerations
This article highlights the 3 best mobile hoists for care homes based on their scores from our equipment experts. But the criteria listed above are certainly not the only factors to consider when purchasing a mobile hoist for your care home. You may have unique needs that are not covered in this article, so you must factor all these into your decision.
These include:
- Budget – both the upfront and the whole life cost
- Environment/surroundings – What type of care home do you operate? Is it purpose-built or a traditional style manor house?
- Care staff H&S and their experience – what equipment have they used previously? Can you get training on new equipment?
- Service user needs – What are the needs of the service users and will the mobile hoist accommodate their needs?
- Look and style of the hoist – Do you operate luxury care homes with a particular style and design? Do you need the hoist to match this modern feel?
As you can see, there are many hoists available that offer distinct features and benefits. You need to consider which mobile hoist is best suited for your environment and the service users you care for. Medaco can help with this.
If you’re still not sure about which mobile hoist to choose for your care home, get in touch with us to talk through your requirements and see if we can help you.
Mobile Hoists Honourable Mentions
The below list are the honourable mentions that didn’t make the top 3 but still come highly recommended by our experts as mobile hoists suitable for care homes.
- Easy to use – incredibly light to manoeuvre around
- Compact and portable – folds up so easy to store, comes with a travel case and bag
- Lightweight – only 25kg without the battery
- Excellent lifting range – makes lifting from the floor very simple
- Flexible all-round mobile hoist for frequent and everyday use
- Weighing just 39.3 kg, it facilitates easy wheeling and manoeuvrability
- High lifting range so can lift from the floor and is also suitable for use with gait training
- Option of the addition of a weigh scale attachment
- Oxford’s equivalent of the Birdie EVO
- A good all-rounder hoist
- Choice of three spreader bar sizes
- Available in electric and hydraulic versions
- Unique design offers the functional advantages of an overhead lift with the flexibility of a mobile lift
- Well suited retractable armrests allow for gait training during rehabilitation
- Optional quick-release hook system means caregivers can easily and rapidly change a sling bar or install a scale
