National ICU Rehabilitation Day

ICU Rehabilitation Day takes place on Friday 21st July and aims to highlight the importance of rehabilitation for patients to undergo the absolute best recovery after critical illness.

Within Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, a large team of medical and healthcare professionals manage the care pathway for rehabilitation. This begins from critical care within the wards, all the way to care and support in the community once discharged.

The multi-disciplinary team is instrumental to the delivery of rehabilitation and recovery services from critical care through to back into the community. This includes nurses, medics and Applied Healthcare Professionals including dietitians, occupational therapists, psychologists, physiotherapists, speech and language therapists and pharmacists.

The work that colleagues have done has meant vast improvements to patient experience and outcomes for those admitted to critical care, particularly those with long admissions to critical care and those with high rehabilitation needs.

As part of ICU Rehabilitation Day, Baroness Ilora Finlay of Llandaff (President of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists), visited the University Hospital of Wales to meet with Consultants, Clinical Specialists and patients to hear more about the Rehabilitation Care pathway work.

The visit also provided the opportunity to discuss developments across NHS Wales including the introduction of a new NHS Wales critical care service specification and a national patient reported outcome measure (PROMS) programme.

Reflecting on their visit, Baroness Finlay said: “The recognition of the importance of the patient pathway is really impressive, and the way the whole team works together to upskill each member of the team was very noticeable.”