A channel for reconditioning medical technical aids

Philippe ROBIN

Managing Director of Envie Autonomie

A channel for reconditioning medical technical aids

Cliquez sur le bouton modifier pour changer ce texte. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.

A channel for reconditioning medical technical aids

Paris – All of France

A channel for reconditioning medical technical aids

It all began in 2015. At the time, Philippe Robin was running a social integration company in the Envie network in Maine-et-Loire, specialising in the reconditioning of household appliances. ‘At the time, associations were alerting us to the fact that many people with disabilities or who were losing their independence were unable to afford medical aids (manual or electric wheelchairs, hygiene chairs, healthcare beds, patient lifts, etc.),’ he recalls. In fact, despite reimbursements from social security, supplementary health insurance and assistance from the départements or other bodies, the outlay is often considerable and many items of equipment are not covered at all.

‘For the past thirty years, the Envie network has been collecting and sorting household appliances that are about to be thrown away, reconditioning some of them in its workshops with staff on integration contracts, and distributing them with all the guarantees and compliance expected. It’s a long experience. So we decided to adapt this expertise to medical equipment’, he adds.

Meeting a real need

The first stage in this process is to check that there is a pool of equipment to collect, and that beneficiaries have a real need for it. ‘These initial intuitions were quickly confirmed. And because Envie is a fast-moving network, the experiment launched in Angers was quickly duplicated in Nancy, Lyon, etc.,’ explains Philippe Robin. The first partnerships were also formed, with departmental councils, ADEME, certain social protection groups, etc. In 2017, the initiative even won the Pionniers French Impact call for projects, which gave a boost to its national roll-out.

The model is convincing on several levels. Firstly, because of its economic and social impact, since the price of reconditioned medical equipment is 50% less than new, making it much more accessible to the most modest households. Another reason is its environmental impact. Every year, almost 240,000 technical aids are thrown away, when over a third could be reused. Similarly, a reconditioned wheelchair emits 97% less CO2 than a new one.

‘The effect on the health system’s finances would not be negligible either, as the French social security system currently spends a billion euros a year on this type of equipment,’ points out Philippe Robin. At present, second-hand technical aids are not yet reimbursed by the social security system. ‘The 2020 Finance Act provided for the reimbursement of manual or electric wheelchairs as a first step, but we are still waiting for the implementing decree to be published’.

The creation of a genuine network

After raising funds in 2019, the SCIC (Société coopérative d’intérêt collectif). Envie Autonomie is born. Its members include the companies in the Envie network, as well as France Active, which has also taken an equity stake and sits on the investors’ committee. ‘The SCIC model allows us to be autonomous and to call on the strengths of partners who contribute to our strategic management by sharing the same commitment to inclusion and the social economy. Like France Active, whose support underpins our national development.

As a result of this dynamic approach, Envie Autonomie now operates in around twenty départements and currently employs 127 people, half of whom are on integration contracts. By 2023, more than 33,000 technical aids had been collected and 8,000 redistributed: ‘The volumes thrown away each year in France show that we have a lot of room for improvement. But we know that our second-hand offer meets a real need among private individuals, as well as medical and social establishments, which are increasingly committed to environmental initiatives. And let’s not forget that the need for independent living support is set to increase considerably over the next few years as the population ages,’ concludes Philippe Robin