NRC Medical Experts deal with the most complex cases of neurological injury and illness. The Specialist Rehabilitation Prescription is designed to assess these patient’s needs and plan the rehabilitation programme required.
The Specialist Rehabilitation Prescription considers and addresses all aspects of the injured person’s life, including their physical, cognitive, emotional, behavioural and social needs.
In 2010, the NHS Clinical Advisory Group (CAG) for Trauma recommended that every patient with major trauma should receive high-quality rehabilitation. As part of this recommendation, they stated that all patients who required rehabilitation when being discharged should ‘have their rehabilitation needs assessed and documented through a Rehabilitation Prescription.’
This prescription gives patients, GPs, case managers and everyone involved in an individual’s care a comprehensive overview of their immediate and longer-term neurorehabilitation requirements in one summary document, which acts as a guide to navigate the complexity of neurological disability.
There are two types of Rehabilitation Prescription -the Standard Rehabilitation Prescription, designed for patients with lower-level rehabilitation requirements, and the Specialist Rehabilitation Prescription for patients with complex needs.
The Specialist Rehabilitation Prescription applies to patients who initially required Level 1 & 2 inpatient rehabilitation with highly specialist multi-disciplinary input. They may then move onto specialist community rehabilitation as a continuation of their prescription. The Specialist Rehabilitation Prescription can only be completed by a Consultant in Rehabilitation Medicine because of the medical complexity of the injury or illness.
Delivering the promise of rehabilitation
As part of the NRC Clinical Practice service, our expert Consultants provide a Specialist Rehabilitation Prescription for every client. We consider this a crucial blueprint to maximise recovery potential.
Despite best efforts, challenges around the Specialist Rehabilitation Prescription remain – particularly in accessing services for patients who are discharged home but still require rehabilitation in the community. Even when a Specialist Rehabilitation Prescription is in place on discharge by the NHS, some patients miss out on essential rehabilitation due to a lack of local resources or provision.
NRC Consultants ensure the Specialist Rehabilitation Prescription works as it should to deliver the promise of rehabilitation. With access to both NHS and independent resources, they work with the GP and/or case manager and the patient, the legal team and multi-disciplinary therapists to regularly review and report on the patient’s outcomes and progress towards their goals.
This regular expert oversight ensures the actions detailed in the Specialist Rehabilitation Prescription have been implemented.
The Specialist Rehabilitation Prescription explored
Our Consultant’s prescription is created with the individual and their family/carers and the NHS clinical team at the earliest opportunity.
Specialist Rehabilitation Prescriptions will begin with a comprehensive statement regarding the patient and will reference such factors as:
It will then set out the various rehabilitations necessary which among many others may include:
Professor Mike Barnes, Director of Clinical Governance
“No patient with a serious neurological injury should be discharged from hospital without a Specialist Rehabilitation Prescription.”