Teams from Walsall Healthcare and The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trusts have been working through the potential opportunities that a more responsive and comprehensive community rehabilitation service can provide. An engagement exercise on the proposed stroke transformation model was carried out over a three-and-a-half-month period, gaining feedback from patients, their families and carers and support groups.
Recommendations provided by both the West Midlands Clinical Senate and Walsall Council’s Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee were also taken on board and have helped shape revisions to the proposed model. The move is also supported by the Black Country Integrated Care Board.
The Trusts’ Board, which met on Tuesday 20 January, has agreed the new approach.
Stephanie Cartwright, Group Chief Community and Partnerships Officer for the Trusts, said: “We’d like to thank our staff, members of the public, professionals and partners who have all made invaluable contributions to our engagement exercise over the past few months.
“We want to develop a new service that is in line with the NHS 10 Year Plan to deliver more proactive, community-based care and reduce reliance on hospital-based services and what we have proposed is a stroke rehabilitation service that provides an opportunity for more patients to receive their rehabilitation at home.”
Patients will benefit from a specialist, seven-day stroke rehabilitation service delivered at home or as close to home as possible, supporting a quicker return to independence and better long-term outcomes.
While bed-based rehabilitation will still be available for those who need it from the West Park Rehabilitation Hospital in Wolverhampton, this will be for shorter periods, with more patients continuing their recovery in their usual place of residence.
The new model reflects the nationally recommended Integrated Community Stroke Service (ICSS) approach, which brings together early supported discharge and community stroke rehabilitation into one integrated service. This will be delivered by a specialist multi-disciplinary team including Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists, Nurses, Psychologists, Speech and Language Therapists, and Social Care professionals.
The Trusts’ Patient Experience Team is also working on transport arrangements to better support Walsall families and carers travelling to West Park Rehabilitation Hospital. Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust has also agreed to further support the rehabilitation of Walsall stroke patients through the gym facilities at Short Health Clinic.
Stephanie added: “We will be increasing the capacity of our community stroke teams across Walsall and Wolverhampton as we want to ensure patients and their families are supported seven days a week by all the healthcare professionals they need to help with timely rehabilitation and recovery.”
The new service will be implemented in the summer.
