In January our Director, Susan Pattison set herself a New Years resolution to promote the work of UKABIF and the findings of their report on Acquired Brain Injury; “Time for Change”, published in September 2018.
February saw the relaunch of the North West United Kingdom Acquired Brain Injury Forum , where a hot topic of conversation was the APPG report on Acquired Brain Injury “Time For Change”. Susan, Jayne and Heather attended the event. The report evaluates the impact of ABI on the individual, the family and wiser society. It highlights that although there has been a massive investment in acute management of ABI leading to any more lives being saved nationally there is a short fall in both public and private sectors of approximately 10,000 beds to provide inpatient neuro rehabilitation. This is despite evidence that neuro rehabilitation is both clinical and cost effective. It also presents an even bleaker picture when it comes to the availability of community based rehabilitation. The team at SP Therapy Services are passionate supports of community based rehabilitation believing that is were ABI survivors and other people with long term neurological conditions live their lives and are giving this report their full support.
In March, Susan had an article about the report published into Frontline, and also was accepted for an ARC Motion for the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. You can read the article here
Both Susan and the Administrator of the main SP Therapy Services’ account, George Stephens, have been keen followers of Chris Bryant MP’s work on the UKABIF Time For Change report. He is a champion of neuro rehabilitation, so Susan’s Twitter timeline often pops up with tweets from him! In April, it was confirmed that for Action for Brain Injury Week, Chris Bryant MP invited UKABIF members to the Speakers House to discuss the need for neuro rehabilitation with their MP’s and Ministers. On the actual day of the event (22nd May 2019), Susan tweeted:
“Good luck to the contingent from @UkabifN as they join @RhonddaBryant& other regional members of @UKABIFtoday in Parliment. Raising the need of people living with #braininjury to have access to #rehabilitation because #rehabworks #RehabMatters#braininjuryawarenessweek”
At the start of June, Susan appeared on “Have I Got Suz For You”, the regular YouTube show of Occupational Psychologist, Suzanne Guest! The topic of discussion was (YES, YOU GUESSED IT!) the UKABIF Time for Change report. Watch the video below.
A few days later, Susan attended the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists’ Annual Representative Conference, to put forward “Motion 22- Rehabilitation Prescription”, seconded by Hannah Farrell, Physiotherapist. The motion was about ensuring that the CSP actively endorse the UKABIF report and support the key recommendations through high profile campaigning. The conference called on the CSP to provide an online training package to ensure Physiotherapists in all sectors have the necessary skills to complete the Rehabilitation Prescription, and keep Physiotherapists as the primary drivers and educators at every stage within Rehabilitation for Acquired Brain Injury. Anyway, the result came in…. and there was a whopping 87% who voted in favour of the motion.
So, Susan’s New Years resolution was to promote the work of UKABIF and the findings of their report… I think it is fair to say that she has kept to that!