Physiotherapy services at St Helier and Sutton hospitals are provided by Sutton and Merton Community Services, who also provide a wide range of therapies within the community.
Physiotherapy
Physiotherapy is concerned with movement and maximising functional abilities. It uses physical approaches to promote, maintain and restore physical well being, taking into account variations in health status. The use of clinical judgement and informed interpretation is at its core.
The inpatient physiotherapy services at St Helier Hospital offer a range of rehabilitation services to maximise function in patients with a range of problems, including:
- orthopaedic;
- neurological;
- respiratory conditions, including an emergency response team;
- elder rehabilitation;
- medical and surgical rehabilitation.
The physiotherapists act to facilitate safe and timely discharge from hospital, and where indicated will refer on to community physiotherapy.
The outpatient physiotherapy services at St Helier Hospital provide musculoskeletal assessment for patients over 16 years of age who are registered with a GP at Sutton and Merton.
Patients attend for a comprehensive assessment and may be offered a variety of treatment options. This may include one to one manual therapy, acupuncture and exercise prescription, group education and rehabilitation programmes and health promotion and injury prevention.
The physiotherapists act to facilitate the achievement of patient centred goals and where appropriate direct the patients to other appropriate community services.
The physiotherapy service is closely linked with the Sutton musculoskeletal assessment , treatment and triage centre and utilises the advanced knowledge of the physiotherapy extended scope practitioners for clinical development.
Occupational therapy
Occupational therapy at St Helier Hospital helps patients whose medical condition, health and/or social care needs, physical disability and/or cognitive impairment are affecting their ability to complete daily living activities independently or safely.
The aim of our holistic intervention is to enable and rehabilitate individual inpatients to achieve a level of function and safety within their necessary daily activities, to successfully support their timely transfer from hospital to home or an appropriate community setting.
The skilled occupational therapy teams provide simple and complex treatments to patients with medical, orthopaedic and neurological conditions.
Speech and language therapy
Speech and language therapy (SALT) at St Helier Hospital provide a service that responds to the needs of individuals who experience speech, language communication or swallowing disorders. Speech and language therapists work in partnership with these individuals and their families and with other professionals and agencies to reduce the impact of these difficulties.
Using a variety of approaches to assess, diagnose improve and compensate for the difficulties resulting from these disorders, they help to improve people's wellbeing and ability to participate in daily life.
Speech and language therapy can reduce the health risks of poor nutrition and respiratory disease associated with swallowing disorders and reduces the risk of surgical intervention by maintaining healthy voice mechanisms
Dietetics
The dietetic team aims to identify malnutrition and to ensure that all patients have optimum nutrition during and after their stay at St Helier Hospital. Good nutrition is essential to recovery and rehabilitation.
Dietitians are the lead experts on the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of diet and nutrition problems including malnutrition, adapting diets to make them appropriate for specific medical conditions, optimising nutritional intake using fortified diets, nutritional supplements and/or tube feeding/PN. The team works closely with the nursing and catering staff at St. Helier Hospital to achieve these outcomes, providing training to staff across services.
In the outpatient setting, dietitians advise patients on adapting their diet to suit their individual needs and make it appropriate for their specific medical condition and symptoms. Dietitians work in partnership with patients and their families, educating, supporting and empowering them to make lifelong changes to their diet and lifestyle.
Paediatric services
There is a dedicated paediatric team based at St. Helier Hospital who provide physiotherapy and dietetic services to inpatients and outpatients.
The team treats a wide range of respiratory, neurological orthopaedic and developmental problems.
