Rehab team are improving lives
New project has ‘encouraging results’
An innovative development in Motherwell is helping to improve the lives of people living in the area.
The Motherwell Rehabilitation Team brings together what were separate community therapy teams spanning NHS Lanarkshire and North Lanarkshire Council’s social work department.
It includes physiotherapists, occupational therapists, a speech and language therapist and support assistants, as well as essential admin support.
The Health and Social Care North Lanarkshire (H&SCNL) initiative is managed jointly by health and council staff, and offers a central contact and assessment point providing joint triage and prioritisation of all requests for rehabilitation or assessment, creating speedy access to the right staff and where appropriate, to aids and adaptations.
It aims to provide an efficient, effective and patient centred rehabilitation service while, where possible, reducing any duplications in the system.
Claire Farren, senior officer, H&SCNL said: “The project is still at an early stage, but we have already seen some very encouraging results.”
So far, she says the team are seeing:
• A timely access and response for all service users; • Reduced waits;
• A smoother transition between locality and hospital – in both directions;
• An improvement in the consistency and continuity of rehabilitation;
• And most importantly, staff and service user satisfaction.
Claire added: “We are also testing a joint health/social work prioritisation tool which is helping us decide the best person to respond and the time frame for that response.”
This co-location of health and social work is further improved with shared access to some council and health systems, some shared paperwork and clearer links with day hospitals and the Hospital at Home service.
As well as the therapy staff, there is also admin support at the project base in Scott House, Motherwell.