INPATIENT REHAB
Empowering patients to take control of their rehab A new NHS rehabilitation centre, the first in the UK to incorporate digital technology and virtual reality into its rehab offering, is helping to redefine rehab as we know it. The purpose-built ward at Castle Hill Hospital in Hull has 12 beds and a range of facilities, including a gym, therapy room and garden area, to enable a comprehensive rehab offering to be delivered. It also becomes the first NHS inpatient rehabilitation unit to incorporate digital technology, including virtual and augmented reality into its rehabilitation programme, after Hull hosted the UK’s first successful clinical trial of the GEO robotic gait trainer in 2017. The project marks a significant investment and the first purpose-built NHS specialist rehabilitation centre across the Humber, Coast and Vale area and neighbouring Lincolnshire. “This new building brings rehab into modern life. Previously to this, we had our rehab unit as part of the cardiac ward, and more recently in the oncology section, but the limitations of not having a dedication rehab ward became obvious,” says Dr Abayomi Salawu, consultant in rehabilitation medicine at Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. “Our role in rehabilitation is to help restore function and enhance quality of life for people with complex
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health needs so that they may go on to live fully and meaningfully, not just exist. “Normal hospital ward environments aren’t generally suited for this purpose, especially in the case of patients with acquired brain injury or physical and cognitive deficits. “This new ward gives us the space and the facilities we need to provide specialist rehabilitation input to the highest level, and will also deliver an environment which is more conducive to patient recovery. “We have 12 beds, we do need more, but while acute clinical care and public health have both received significant investment for many years, but rehabilitation - the third pillar upon which the NHS is built - has sadly lagged behind. “So our new rehabilitation ward is a really significant development and definitely a step in the right direction.” Redefining the traditional definition and practices of rehab is something Dr Salawu has long been committed to, and that extends into the ethos of the Castle Hill ward. “We offer complex rehab, if the nurses or staff on any ward think they have a patient who could benefit, then they can come to the new ward,” he says. “Life has to be about more than going to the toilet and the whole ethos of being able to conquer that starts by conquering your first environment, which is hospital. “The approach that has always been taken often makes a patient more poorly, in a way. I’m not underplaying physical injury, but in an NHS hospital, the first thing we do is give someone a bed, even if they walked in. A lot of people become deconditioned when they are hospitalised, and that’s making patients worse.
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