The report, Specialist rehabilitation for patients with complex needs following major injury presents findings from the first stage of the three-year long programme National Clinical Audit of Specialist Rehabilitation following Major Injury (NCASRI), which was commissioned in 2015 and aims to improve the quality of care for major trauma patients in England.
The report focuses on the provision of Level 1 services (for patients with highly complex rehabilitation needs that are beyond the scope of their local and district specialist services) and Level 2 services (local district specialist rehabilitation services). Data from the UK Rehabilitation Outcomes Collaborative (UKROC) and the Trauma Audit and Research Network (TARN) was examined.
Key findings of the report are:
- 80% of trauma patients who were admitted to specialist rehabilitation services were initially assessed within 10 days of referral; however 10% of patients were waiting over three weeks, and 1.6% were waiting over three months.
- The mean waiting time for admission following assessment was 16 days. 95% of patients were admitted within six weeks of being fit for transfer. 1.3% waited for more than three months and some waited up to a year for admission.
- The average length of stay is approximately 75 days.
- The overall time to offset the cost of rehabilitation by savings in ongoing care in the community was 22 months.
The report also identified a number of gaps in the services, such as lack of community based and vocational rehabilitation, fragmented pathways after initial acute care and long delays in transfer to rehabilitation resulting in repatriation to settings with inadequate skills to manage the patient’s needs. Suggestions for improvement have been recommended.
Find out more
- Read the full report: The National Clinical Audit of Specialist Rehabilitation for Patients with Complex Needs Following Major Injury
- Get information for people with brain injury, their families and carers in the rehabilitation and continuing care section.
- Search for a Headway approved care provider
