An innovative service at St. Bartholomew's Hospital to provide intensive rehab to cancer patients with neurological impairments has just published its 6 month preliminary data.Although funded by Macmillan Cancer Support for 2 years, at this stage the team are already seeing positive outcomes in terms of improved functional outcomes, quality of life, patient experience, and reduced length of stay.
With the addition of A Band 7 Occupational Therapist, a band 7 Physiotherapist, and a Band 4 Rehab Support Worker the team has saved Barts Health more than £63,000.00 per month of operation through reducing length of stay, as well as additional savings in the community through reduced on-going care needs.
This service could be replicated at any site, and helps to address the shortage of level 1 and 2 rehab beds accessible to cancer patients in the Barts Health catchment area, as well as complying with NICE guidance relating to rehab provision for this patient cohort, particularly as survival rates improve and more patients present with brain and spinal pathology as a result of their cancer.
It is particularly gratifying to see how well the service has been received by patients and the MDT, as well as the improvements to patients' function, and it is hoped the final project data will help to support the formulation of therapy guidelines for oncology, and particularly neuro-oncology patients.The team have been accepted to present their results so far at the European Cancer Rehabilitation & Survivorship Symposium in Copenhagen in September 2018, and have also applied to present at the British Neuro-Oncology Society Conference in July 2018.