A day in the life of an ICT Therapist
This week, we spend a morning with Natalie, one of the band 7 Physiotherapists with the ICT team. Our therapy team play a really important role in supporting patients as they are discharged from hospital. This could be the acute hospitals, Northampton or Kettering General Hospitals or any of the county's Community hospitals.
Patients who have had surgery or a prolonged period in hospital are likely to experience deconditioning - this means patients who have had a long stay in bed for several weeks or longer, haven't been using their muscles and ligaments, and tasks that they found easy before, may have become difficult or impossible.
Our Therapy team can help when it comes to supporting patients to leave hospital. They can arrange equipment and physical support that makes it easier for patients to move around safely in their own homes, and also to perform daily tasks.
In this week's video, we see Natalie visiting a patient who has been receiving therapy since leaving hospital. She's been making really good progress and is about to try going up and down stairs for the first time since being home.
The Therapy team can also provide short term support with activities of daily living, things like washing and dressing, following a fall or short-term deterioration, or whilst waiting for more appropriate long-term support to be arranged.
All in all, this support helps patients to recover in the familiarity of their own home with appropriate equipment to enable them to keep making progress. This means the hospital bed can be made free and the patient can be home, in their own surroundings recovering.
The service is also a huge support to colleagues in the general hospitals, one Emergency Department consultant from Northampton General Hospital said:
''ICT is an excellent service, great at supporting discharges safely from the hospital, 100% of my patients supported by ICT do not get re-admitted.
Watch Natalie out and about seeing patients.