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Posted on 24 Jan 2017

The Trust has been awarded a new £1.5m contract for Stroke Early Supported Discharge and Community Rehabilitation Services by NHS Nottingham North and East, NHS Nottingham West and NHS Rushcliffe Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs). The contract begins in April 2017 for four years.

The Trust has experience in providing stroke services and is the current provider of community stroke rehabilitation. In April 2016 it successfully transferred previously hospital based services into its services following a procurement by the Nottinghamshire CCGs with the same aim of redesigning services to be more focussed on meeting patients’ needs in their own homes.

Under the new contract, the Trust will offer a high quality therapy led Multidisciplinary Team approach providing stroke rehabilitation in a patient’s home focused around achievement of agreed rehabilitation goals. Health and social care professionals will work together to provide the intensive, coordinated care required by stroke patients as part of their rehabilitation.  The service will help patients regain mobility, function and confidence following stroke.

Providing therapy in a patient’s home will enable them to be around their loved ones and feel safe in their own environment, which means they often engage better with therapy. It also provides the opportunity for families to become more involved in their care.  Treatment can be tailored around the context of their everyday lives and patients are able to identify with the relevance of why treatment is being given.

We will be bringing together the Early Supported Discharge and the community rehabilitation elements of the pathway and aim to improve integration with Nottingham University Hospital’s acute unit.   Teams will work with an in-reach clinician supporting joint decision making on discharge and rehabilitation planning. Following stroke the service will provide annual stroke reviews for all patients – an element of the pathway not currently commissioned and provided for county patients who have had a stroke. These reviews will help to identify stroke survivors who may benefit from further therapy or signposting to other support services.

The service will help patients to leave hospital more quickly and return to their own homes so that they can maximise independence as quickly as possible after their stroke. This local service will provide expert help and support people from the moment they get home, optimising recovery and assisting patients in regaining their independence.

Anthony Rosevear, Divisional General Manager for South Nottinghamshire, commented, “I am delighted that the Trust has been chosen to deliver these services for stroke patients across South Nottinghamshire.  Work is already underway to develop the details of the service and involves close partnership working with Nottingham University Hospitals and Nottingham City Care. Senior clinicians are leading the development of clinical pathways from each organisation while pathways into other local services and groups such as StrokeAbility are being advanced.”